


Of Disadvantages And Benefits

by flawedamythyst



Series: Of Benefits And Certainties [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-06
Updated: 2011-02-06
Packaged: 2017-10-15 11:00:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/160167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flawedamythyst/pseuds/flawedamythyst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of The Great Game, Sherlock and John are forced to go and stay with Mycroft and Sherlock has to deal with the dual problems of hunting Moriarty and his new-realised feelings for John.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Disadvantages And Benefits

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lavvyan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lavvyan/gifts).



Mycroft was sitting by the bed when Sherlock woke up, both his hands resting on his umbrella and with the faint frown on his face that was the closest he ever came to looking worried. Sherlock groaned and shut his eyes again.

“Surely you realise that waking up to see your face is only going to hinder my recovery?” he asked as his mind ran through the data coming in from around his body.

Throbbing pain in his head: concussion, no doubt the cause of his loss of consciousness; twisting, strained pain in his shoulder: not bad enough to signify a dislocation or break but clearly there was at least substantial bruising; mild burning sensation in his lungs when he inhaled: smoke inhalation, not serious or there'd be an oxygen mask; slightly diminished mental capacity and dulled perception of pain: some form of pain killer, but not morphine. He knew exactly how morphine affected him.

“It was a calculated risk,” said Mycroft dryly. “I doubt it will have enough of an effect to inconvenience you more than your own actions already have.”

Conclusions, then: mild concussion, a bruised shoulder, and lungs that were already beginning to recover from the smoke. Nothing that would prevent him from leaving the hospital immediately, although Mycroft's presence and the clear signs that he'd been waiting for between two and three hours pointed to something more serious. He'd missed something. What was it? Something important- Oh. His eyes flew open.

“Where's John?” he asked.

In the time Mycroft took to answer the question, all of Sherlock's injuries become trifling secondary considerations when compared to the sensation of being sucked down into a spiralling black whirlpool that appeared in his chest.

“In surgery,” he said eventually. “He did not escape the effects of the explosion as easily as you did. He was partially buried under a wall.”

Sherlock almost tried to sit up at that, suddenly desperate to see John's familiar face in order to reassure himself that all was well, but he knew that there was nothing he could actually do other than get in the way of the doctors. Something in his face must have given him away, although he was certain that he hadn't twitched a muscle, because Mycroft leant forward the tiniest amount.

“He has the very best surgeon in London,” he said. “I am confident that he will be fine.”

Sherlock glared at him but couldn't find the energy to deny his concern, or to object to the meddling that Mycroft must have done to arrange for that particular surgeon. Instead he allowed a brief slideshow of John's various character traits to flash across his mind, taking care to linger in particular on his stubbornness and refusal to let his weaknesses hold him back. After surviving Afghanistan, John wasn't going to let a man like Moriarty be the end of him, Sherlock told himself firmly. There was absolutely no point in wasting mental capacity on the situation at any rate, not until the outcome of the surgery was clear.

Somehow, that failed to calm the agitation in his mind. Sherlock frowned, wondering why just the idea of John being hurt affected him more than both his own injuries and the knowledge that Moriarty had won this round and lived to play another put together.

“How do people stand this?” he muttered.

Mycroft didn't bother asking what he was talking about. “There are benefits that more than balance out the negatives,” he said instead.

Sherlock evaluated the effect that John's smile could have on him; the unfamiliar kick in his chest whenever John expressed admiration or fondness for him, either directly or indirectly; and the warmth that seemed to come from within whenever they were relaxing together in their home. How strange that with all the signs, it had taken the sheer freezing panic of knowing he might lose him before he realised what he was feeling.

“It is strangely addicting,” he admitted at last, but he really wasn't sure that those feelings balanced out the effect that knowing John was undergoing life-saving surgery was having on both his brain and his body.

“And you do get addicted so easily,” said Mycroft, amusement audible in his voice.

The idea of comparing John to his drugs, or to the other things that Mycroft was no doubt alluding to – the rush of solving a crime, the satisfaction of going up against another intellect and proving yourself superior, even that unfortunate incident with the sugar cubes when he was a child – made Sherlock realise just how out-of-control this thing had become already. “Never to anything that comes close to this,” he said in a quiet voice.

Mycroft didn't reply to that, but he did remove one hand from his umbrella and relocate it to rest on top of Sherlock's. Sherlock shut his eyes rather than demand the hand be removed, which probably gave away far too much information about his mental state, but he was tired and he hurt and John was injured and he just couldn't be bothered with keeping Mycroft at bay for the moment. No doubt he'd regret it later when Mycroft took it as some kind of permission to rearrange his life, but for now he was just going to lie very still and try not to think about what his life would be like if John died.

 

****

 

Mycroft stayed with him until a doctor came in to tell them that John had made it out of surgery, and that it looked like he'd recover well. Sherlock naturally interrogated him about every detail, which for some reason made the man become a little unnerved. Surely it was natural to want to know about the well-being of someone you cared about, including the precise nature of every injury and exactly what had been done to repair him? Sherlock was trying to ascertain the precise placement of every stitch that was holding John together, trying to picture it all in his head as he clearly wasn't going to be allowed to go and see him just yet, when Mycroft interrupted with a gently cleared throat.

“Leave the poor man alone, Sherlock,” he said reprovingly. “I suspect he has other things to be doing than attempting to satisfy your insatiable curiosity.”

Sherlock scowled at him. “I just want to make sure they've done it properly.”

“We did the very best job we could,” said the doctor. Sherlock snorted to make his opinion of their 'very best job' clear, but let the doctor leave without any further questions.

“You know that James Moriarty escaped,” said Mycroft carefully.

Sherlock nodded irritably. It was the very last thing he remembered before he'd lost consciousness after the explosion – Moriarty pulling himself up and scurrying away, out the back door. He didn't bothering asking how Mycroft knew about it.

“He'll show himself again,” he said with confidence. “He's not going to let the game end like this.”

“No,” agreed Mycroft. “He wants you dead, I suppose.”

“I can't decide if he wants someone to play with more than he wants the safety of having disposed of me,” said Sherlock. “Although I should imagine he's rather annoyed with me right now.”

Mycroft nodded. “I'll arrange to have your things brought to the house immediately,” he said. “I've no doubt you'll want to discharge yourself as early as possible.”

Sherlock stared at him. “What? Why on earth would I want to go back to your ridiculous mausoleum instead of Baker Street?”

Mycroft let out an irritated breath. “He knows where you live,” he pointed out. “He's shown that he's perfectly willing to target those around you and that he isn't afraid of collateral damage. I cannot reallocate the resources it would take to make Baker Street secure without setting off rather a lot of alarm bells over inappropriate use, so naturally you will have to stay with me until this man is apprehended.”

Sherlock scowled at him. Mycroft's house was probably more secure than almost any other place in London, including Buckingham Palace and Downing Street, but that didn't mean that Sherlock was going to give up his independence and privacy so easily. “I'd prefer to face whatever Moriarty has planned for me than have to live with you again,” he said.

Mycroft raised one eyebrow. “And what about your landlady, and your neighbours? Are you prepared to let them face Moriarty? What about John? Moriarty has already targeted him once, wouldn't it be safer if you were both out of his reach?”

Mentioning John was a low blow. Sherlock felt his scowl become a glare. “There are other places he could go,” he said.

“Whilst he's recovering from major surgery?” asked Mycroft. “Places where he could be safe and have access to medical care?”

Sherlock let out a disgusted noise. “Fine,” he said tersely. “But this doesn't mean you can get involved – this is my fight.”

Mycroft held up two hands. “I wouldn't dream of it,” he said. “I have my own matters to attend to. The Americans are being most difficult about affairs in Saudi Arabia.”

Sherlock didn't believe him for a second, but there was nothing he could do about it now. He shut his eyes, finding himself irritatingly weary after such a short period of being awake, and let sleep block Mycroft out for now.

 

****

 

It was another three days before Sherlock was allowed to leave the hospital. He'd have checked himself out much earlier, but Mycroft claimed that he was implementing additional security measures that weren't fully in place. It was a disappointingly obvious ploy to keep him in hospital until the doctors had done with their poking, a fact that Sherlock made sure to complain about whenever Mycroft came by to visit him, which was annoyingly often.

It wasn't so bad being in hospital, really. After the first day, he was allowed – after a certain amount of fuss and bother – to go and see John. They were keeping him sedated for the moment, but getting to see his face, even when it was unconscious and covered with a mask, was infinitely preferable to staring at the blank walls of his own hospital room. Seeing John alive, hearing the beep of his heartbeat monitor and watching the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed improved his mental clarity.

John was more than a little confused and disorientated when he finally did wake up, but his eyes fixed on Sherlock's face and he smiled dopily. “Sherlock,” he said in a half-slurred voice. “No more bombs, please.”

“I'll do my best,” Sherlock told him and John's smile grew, just before his eyes drifted shut again.

Sherlock spent most of his time in John's room after that, claiming to himself that it was far more entertaining than his own, which was at least partially true. John slept for large amounts of time, but in between he was perfectly happy to sit and listen to Sherlock's monologues about the staff's personal lives, interjecting the occasional dry comment.

When Sherlock was finally allowed to leave, part of him almost wanted to stay where he could make sure that John was safe, but most of him knew that the best way to do that was to catch Moriarty before he could plan his next move. He left John at the hospital in the care of Mycroft's babysitters and turned his attention to tacking Moriarty down.

Mycroft had set aside a room for Sherlock in his house when he first moved in over a decade ago, which had only really been used when Sherlock had had nowhere else to go, or when Mycroft had attempted to stage an intervention over Sherlock's drug use. Sherlock hadn't been inside it for over six years, but he wasn't overly surprised to find that nothing about it had changed, except for the arrival of a pile of his belongings by the door. He ignored the bag of clothes in favour of pulling out his laptop, which Mycroft had refused to bring to him in the hospital, and set to work.

Mycroft watched him from the doorway for a few minutes while Sherlock did his best to completely ignore him. “You should at least start with a change of clothing,” he suggested. Sherlock didn't bother responding and was rewarded with Mycroft's best long-suffering sigh. “Remember that your body is still healing, and will need food and rest,” he said. “I'll send Mary up with some food in an hour or so.”

“Just tea will be fine,” said Sherlock without looking up from his screen.

“No tea until you've eaten,” said Mycroft. “There's no use in you coming out of hospital if you're going to starve your way straight back there.”

Sherlock scowled at him, but when Mary, Mycroft's maid, came up with a sandwich an hour or so later, he ate most of it before letting himself be distracted by the unravelling web of Moriarty's organisation. Now that he knew what to look for, he could see traces of Moriarty's fingerprints on dozens of the organised crimes in the last few years, and on even more of the crimes he personally had investigated. No wonder Moriarty had spoken to him as if he was an old friend – he must have been tracking Sherlock for years. If Sherlock was going to bring him down, he desperately needed to catch up.

Mycroft himself brought the tea up, along with a cup for himself that he drank in the armchair by the fire, watching Sherlock work in a way that made Sherlock twitch internally.

“I'll need the police report on the explosion,” Sherlock said eventually, just to break the atmosphere.

Mycroft nodded. “Detective Inspector Lestrade has agreed to come over with it tomorrow morning,” he said. “However, if you don't sleep tonight, I shall put him off until the next day.”

Sherlock looked up to glare at him. “There's too much information to go through to bother with sleep,” he said. Just going through all the relevant crimes was going to take days, let alone analysing each of them to find connections that might lead to where Moriarty might be right now.

“I promised Doctor Watson that I'd make sure you looked after yourself,” said Mycroft. “He seemed certain that you'd neglect your health. Do you really want to prove him right? I'm sure the worry wouldn't be good for him.”

Sherlock gave him a dark look and refused to say anything else, burying himself in Moriarty's sordid history so deeply that he could almost pretend that Mycroft wasn't there silently observing him.

He did sleep for five hours that night, though. Damn Mycroft and his ability to manipulate him.

 

****

 

**2002**

Everything was shining when he opened his eyes, although the ceiling was possibly the brightest of it all. It shone like a star and he wanted to reach up and touch it. He struggled to sit up, reaching for it, but it was too far away, too far, just like the stars, just like everything else that he wanted to hold in his hand.

There was a cleared throat next to him, and Sherlock turned to see Mycroft sitting by the bed, the only thing that wasn't shining.

“Get out of my flat,” he said, carefully corralling the right words into a sentence and sending them out to defeat Mycroft.

“This is my house,” Mycroft pointed out. He was dressed only in shirt sleeves, and his tie was slightly askew. That should mean something to Sherlock, but he was too distracted by the spinning thoughts cascading through his head to remember what.

“Oh,” he said, looking around again and noticing more than just the shininess. It was Mycroft's house. He made a face. “I hate it here.”

Mycroft sighed. “I know,” he said. “You've made that abundantly clear over the years, but your current landlord has seen fit to evict you, and you were wandering the streets.”

Evicted. That was bad. That meant something bad, what did it- oh! “My experiment! What happened to my experiment?” Sherlock demanded.

Mycroft glared at him. “If you mean the home-made drug's lab in the bathroom,” he said distastefully, “parts of it had exploded. I had the rest dismantled and disposed of.”

Sherlock felt impotent rage swell up in his chest, and smashed his hand down on the mattress. “I was making the perfect high,” he declared. “You ruined it! Why do you have to ruin everything?”

“I suspect it's because I'm family,” said Mycroft. He leaned forward, fixing Sherlock with a look that made Sherlock want to throw things at him. “Sherlock, you cannot keep doing this. You're throwing your life away.”

“It's my life,” Sherlock pointed out. “None of your business.”

“You're my brother, you will always be my business,” replied Mycroft, sounding as wearied by the prospect as Sherlock was. “Can you really tell me that wasting your brain on endlessly chasing after the next high is really all you want to achieve?”

“Yes,” said Sherlock firmly.

Mycroft sat back again., “Then,” he said, with a glint in his eye that made Sherlock suddenly feel apprehensive, “next time I find you like this, I shall take you home to stay with Mummy.”

Sherlock stared at him in shocked silence for a long moment, almost in awe of the completeness of the threat. “You wouldn't,” he managed eventually.

“If I'm not your brother, then I shall feel compelled to deliver you to the only family you have,” said Mycroft in an even tone.

Sherlock considered for a while. He wasn't sure how long – the ceiling spun into an intricate pattern of lights for an indefinite amount of time, but Mycroft waited patiently for him to respond. “You're my brother,” he said eventually.

Mycroft nodded with satisfaction. “Then you are going to dry out,” he said. Sherlock lay back on the bed with a sigh, watching the ceiling again. It seemed even further away now, slowly retreating from him until he could barely see the brightness that had once been there.

 

****

 

By the time John was released from hospital and brought back to Mycroft's house, all Sherlock had really been able to ascertain about Moriarty was that his network ran far deeper and wider than he'd guessed. There had to be a connection somewhere, a link between crimes or a mistake that the police hadn't spotted that would put Sherlock onto his trail.

He made Mycroft use his connections to get him copies of every crime report that might be relevant and they arrived the next day, a large stack of boxes filled with files of every crime that had had an organised element to it in the last five years. Sherlock started going through them immediately, but it was time-consuming work, especially when he found his mind wandering to John's face at odd moments, or wondering how his recovery was going. Putting John out of his head so that he could achieve his usual single-minded focus on his work turned out to be a lot harder than he'd anticipated, and he added it to the ever-growing list of disadvantages related to his feelings for John.

He pulled himself away for long enough to greet John when he arrived. John was too busy gazing around at Mycroft's house with poorly hidden awe to return the greeting, which made Sherlock hate Mycroft's ridiculous interior decorating even more than he did already. Mycroft's house was far too large for one man and done up as if it were a Victorian gentleman's club, complete with over-stuffed armchairs, velvet drapes and an umbrella stand made of mahogany, polished to a high shine and carved with elaborate flourishes and intricate flowers.

“This is, uh, very nice, Mycroft,” said John after a few minutes.

Mycroft allowed himself a thin smile while Sherlock shot him an annoyed look. He could have bought himself a heap like this, if he'd wanted to shackle his brain to the drudgery of the government. “Thank you,” said Mycroft graciously. “Allow me to show you to the spare room I've had made up for you. It's just next door to Sherlock's room, but if you find he's too noisy, I can easily move you further away.”

Sherlock had played his violin until nearly 4 the previous night, desperately trying to think of an easier solution to the problem of Moriarty than trawling through every crime committed over the last five years for a mistake, and trying to ignore the coiled anxiety in his stomach at the thought of John's imminent arrival at the same time.

“Oh, next to Sherlock is fine,” said John. “I'm used to the noise by now. I think I even missed it a bit in the hospital.”

“Indeed,” said Mycroft with a raised eyebrow and a brief, amused glance at Sherlock that was ignored.

“I'll show you,” Sherlock said. “Come on, John. Mycroft probably has foreign diplomats to blackmail.” He headed upstairs without waiting, counting on John to follow him like he always did, and then was peeved when John stayed where he was, finishing the conversation with Mycroft as if it was at all important or interesting.

“I'm sorry,” John said to Mycroft, no doubt with the rueful shrug that he adopted whenever he felt he needed to apologise for Sherlock's behaviour.

“It's quite all right,” said Mycroft. “I'll send some tea up in half an hour.”

Sherlock had made it almost to the top of the stairs and John hadn't even started at the bottom yet. He scowled to himself and slowed his pace slightly.

“Oh, you don't have to-” started John, but Mycroft interrupted him.

“It's no trouble. I hope your stay here is comfortable and if you need anything, don't hesitate to ask.”

“That's very kind of you,” said John. Sherlock's scowl deepened. Bloody Mycroft and his smooth manners. He reached the top of the stair and paused, turning back to see Mycroft smile at John in what appeared to be an overly friendly way to Sherlock, then disappear through a door. John looked up at Sherlock with an amused look, as if he knew just how ridiculous Sherlock found all this polite waffle that everyone felt compelled to spout at the slightest opportunity.

“Come on,” he said impatiently, and John finally started up the stairs. He observed John's slow steps and over-reliance on the banister and was forcibly reminded of how close he'd come to losing any chance to ever hear this man engage in meaningless small-talk again, and for some reason that made his throat clench in an unpleasant way.

The tension in John's jaw and the way he kept his eyes firmly on the next step without even once glancing up at Sherlock said that he really would not welcome assistance, so Sherlock just stood and watched him. John’s time at the hospital had made him lose weight and Sherlock hoped he'd take advantage of Mycroft's kitchen and regain it – there was little enough of him to start with, and Sherlock rather enjoyed the idea of him being comfortable to relax against, even if he never had the opportunity to test exactly how comfortable.

John's careful steps eventually brought them to his room, where Sherlock opened the door and strolled in to throw himself down on the bed and watch John's reaction.

Mycroft's guest rooms had been decorated with the intention to intimidate, and featured even more heavy fabrics and dark furniture than the downstairs rooms. John looked around at the four-poster bed, the over-large mirror that hung opposite it and the imposing fireplace with wide eyes. There was a massive portrait of a fierce-looking woman dressed entirely in black glaring out at the room that John's eyes lingered on for a long time.

“I didn't know there were houses left looking like this that weren't museums.”

Sherlock snorted. “This place might as well be a museum,” he said scathingly. “Mycroft let some idiot designer loose on it and then never bothered to change it.”

John didn't move from the doorway. “What's your room like?” he asked. “Better or worse?”

“Better,” said Sherlock, leaping up from the bed again. “I can't think with all this rubbish around me.” He'd told Mycroft very firmly that there was no way he was ever going to stay if he felt like he was suffocating in velvet, and that the very last thing he wanted in his room was a reminder that he was at Mycroft's house. Mycroft had had it decorated as if it were a hotel room - magnolia walls, generic furniture and absolutely nothing that looked like it belonged in the country estate of some minor noble.

Sherlock lead the way next door and was pleased when John relaxed immediately at the sight of his room.

“Oh, this is much better,” he said with relief and deigned to come in further than the doorway, even going as far as to sink down onto Sherlock's bed. He tried to make the movement look casual, but Sherlock wasn't fooled for a moment. John was only just out of the hospital, after all, and had clearly come to the end of his strength for now.

John eyed Sherlock's desk, which was covered with his research on Moriarty and the beginnings of his attempts to analyse the patterns behind his crimes. “You look like you've been busy.”

Sherlock looked at the research himself and frowned. “Not busy enough,” he said. “Mycroft insists I waste time on sleeping and eating, when there's so much still to be done. I've been attempting to list every single acquaintance and associate of Carl Powers, but it's been a struggle after the amount of time that's passed. If only the police had been less indescribably dense at the time, Moriarty's whole career could have ended then.” He waved a hand at one of the stacks of crime reports that he'd started to sort the crates into. “These are all crimes I'm certain that Moriarty was involved in, but it's only the tip of the iceberg. If I could just see the connection between them – there has to be one, he can't possibly be clever enough to have hidden every loose end, not from me.”

John pulled himself up a little further on the bed and settled back against the headboard. “Would it help to run through it out loud to me?” he asked.

Sherlock glanced at John's relaxed posture. “Possibly,” he said, and launched into a monologue on Moriarty's past misdemeanours, making his voice as soothing and even as possible.

By the time Mary tapped on the door with a tea tray, John was fast asleep on Sherlock's bed. Sherlock sent her away with a wave of his hand and sat down at his desk, intending to continue his research, but instead found himself just watching John sleep. He looked so peaceful, especially when you factored in his over-sized jumper, as if he'd never engage in anything more deadly than a quiet afternoon fishing. There was nothing in his face or body that pointed towards his ability to gun a man down from a great distance with complete accuracy and little or no remorse, not even under Sherlock's scrutiny. He was as much of a puzzle as Moriarty, but far more pleasant to contemplate. Sherlock found himself wanting to get closer, to examine every line of John's face and note the exact changes that sleep had wrought on it, but there was a chance that that would wake John and then Sherlock would have to answer all kinds of unpleasant questions.

He wasn't sure precisely what John's reaction would be to the news that Sherlock had discovered that his feelings for John went beyond the merely friendly, but he strongly suspected it wouldn't be good. Observation had shown that most people became uncomfortable in the presence of those whose feelings they didn't return, and the last thing Sherlock wanted was to risk losing his friendship with John.

There was a quiet tap on the door and Mycroft entered silently without waiting for an invite. He took in John's sleeping form and Sherlock's position as a silent observer and raised one careful eyebrow that said everything about what he was thinking. Sherlock sent him a glare that he hoped would convey his deep desire for Mycroft to die painfully, or failing that, leave the room.

Instead, Mycroft came further inside, pausing by Sherlock's chair in order to say in a voice quiet enough not to disturb John, “What are your plans?”

Sherlock feigned ignorance. “Find out everything I can about Moriarty so we can track him down and get out of here.”

Mycroft didn't bother replying. He just kept looking knowingly at him until Sherlock was forced to answer the actual question he'd asked.

“Nothing,” he spat. “There's nothing to be done that will result in a better situation than the current one.”

Mycroft looked back at John. “I wonder,” he said in a contemplative voice.

“No you don't,” said Sherlock fiercely. “No wondering. This is none of your business, Mycroft. For once, just keep your hands out of my life.”

Mycroft pursed his lips. “If you insist,” he said. “I was merely enquiring as to how you intended to deal with this. It is, after all, an almost entirely unprecedented situation.”

Sherlock lost his insecure grip on his temper and pointed at the door. “Out,” he demanded. “I need to be able to think without the distraction of your face, and you'll disturb John.”

Mycroft's look of amusement made Sherlock want to lash out at him, but he did leave. Sherlock resisted the temptation to throw something after him because it would wake John, and finally turned back to his research. The sooner they could get back to Baker Street, the better. Even if John never fell asleep on Sherlock's bed there.

 

****

 

**2000**

It had seemed perfectly logical to everyone that when Sherlock dropped out of university and announced his intention to move to London, he should move in with Mycroft. Everyone except Sherlock, that was, but it didn't seem like he had much of a choice. The general opinion seemed to be that after the unforgivable mistake of not staying to finish his degree, he couldn't be trusted with anything else.

Mummy took him to Mycroft's house, but left as soon as he was inside with all his bags. It was the first time Sherlock had seen the house, and he was appalled. What on earth was Mycroft thinking, living somewhere so ostentatious and hideous?

“I'll show you your room after supper,” Mycroft told him, leading him through an oak-panelled drawing room. “You'll probably want a good night's sleep. I've arranged for you to meet a colleague in the morning about a job in his department. It's only administration, really, but what can you expect without a full degree? I'm confident you'll be able to work your way up.”

“I don't want a job,” said Sherlock sharply as they finally arrived at what must be the dining room. There was a table large enough to seat the extended royal family, set for two, with a whole series of covered dishes surrounding the settings.

Mycroft stopped and turned, raising one smooth eyebrow. “Nonsense. You'll drive yourself mad if you don't have anything to do.”

“I'll drive myself mad even faster in some tedious government job,” said Sherlock. His nerves were beginning to stretch thin and wind themselves into knots. He hadn't been able to have a hit since before Mummy had picked him up. “I'm not hungry. Where's my room?”

Mycroft sighed in an exasperated and vaguely patronising manner that made Sherlock want to punch him. “Great effort has been gone to to provide this meal,” he said.

“Not by you,” pointed out Sherlock. He glanced down meaningfully at Mycroft's waistline. “And it looks like you could stand to skip a few meals, anyway.”

Mycroft's eyes narrowed. “This way,” he snapped, and Sherlock took note of it. There were few enough things that would genuinely rile Mycroft, it was always good to find another one.

Sherlock's room was even worse than he'd feared. “Oh, god,” he said, looking around in horror. “You can't honestly expect me to stay here? It looks as if it should be in a Victorian melodrama – am I to expect weeping maidens and moustachioed villains?”

“There might be a murder at midnight if you keep this up,” said Mycroft. “I am trying to help you, Sherlock.”

“I don't need your help,” said Sherlock. He pointed at the door. “Out! If I'm to be stuck here, I want to at least be alone.”

“You will have to find something to do with yourself,” said Mycroft. “You won't be able to drift forever.”

“Out!” said Sherlock again. His mind was fixed entirely on the needle in his bag, and he could almost feel the hit, it felt so close. “And,” he added as Mycroft turned to leave, “find a decorator who can come by tomorrow. I'm not sleeping more than one night in this monstrosity – I'd rather sleep on the streets.”

After he'd injected himself and taken a few minutes to revel in the bliss that followed, the first thing he did was to rip down everything that made him feel as if his skin was going to crawl off his body when he looked at it. Then he crawled on top of the pile of discarded furnishings and went to sleep without another thought about jobs. If Mycroft didn't think he could drift forever, he would just have to prove him wrong.

 

****

 

John woke up a few hours later, blinking in a disorientated manner at the unfamiliar room.

“Oh, sorry,” he said, sitting up and rubbing at his face. “If I'd known I was going to sleep I'd have gone back to the other room.”

Sherlock ignored that in favour of looking at John's posture carefully, satisfied to note that the brief sleep seemed to have smoothed some of the lines from his face and brought more colour to his cheeks. “You were no bother,” he said.

There was a tentative tap on the door. Sherlock repressed a sigh at how often he had to deal with these interruptions. “Come in.”

It was Mary with a tray of sandwiches. “Mycroft asked me to bring these up,” she said, setting them down on the table. Sherlock regarded them with distaste, but John perked up at the sight of them.

“Oh, good,” he said, favouring her with a grateful smile. “I'm starving. Thank you very much.”

“You're welcome,” she said, returning the smile and revealing the existence of dimples.

John got off the bed in order to investigate the tray. “I'm John,” he said.

“Mary,” she replied.

“I'm terribly sorry to have imposed on you like this,” continued John.

Sherlock let out an impatient breath. “She's the maid, John. She gets paid to be imposed on.”

John's eyes widened and Sherlock could see the _who has a maid these days?_ cross his mind as clearly as if it was written on his forehead.

“That's not precisely what I put on my C.V.” said Mary dryly.

“I wouldn't pay attention to anything he says,” John told her. “He's just sulking.”

“It's okay, I have a teenage brother. I know when to ignore a tantrum,” she said, and John laughed. The sound of it set Sherlock's teeth on edge – it wasn't the laugh that he gave Sherlock, it was the other one, the lower, deep-throated one that he used when he was talking to a pretty woman. Sherlock looked at Mary and re-evaluated her appearance in light of this, taking in her blonde hair and curvy figure with a new sense of dread. She was just John's type.

“Don't you have some floors to go and scrub?” Sherlock interrupted before the conversation could go any further.

“Sherlock!” exclaimed John, turning to glare at him.

“I can't think with her prattling on and on,” said Sherlock. “In case you'd already forgotten, there's a madman who wants us dead to be caught.”

John let out a long, careful breath through his nose then turned back to Mary. “I tell you what,” he said, “Sherlock's not going to eat any of this anyway. How about we take it somewhere we can have a chat and leave him to his thinking?”

Her dimples reappeared. “You could come down to the kitchen,” she suggested. “I've a bit of cleaning to do, but you're welcome to keep me company whilst I do so.”

“That sounds lovely,” said John.

“You can't go all the way down to the kitchen,” Sherlock interjected. “You're still recovering.”

John turned his glare on Sherlock again. “I'm fine,” he said. “I'm just going to sit down there and eat, something you look like you could be doing with.”

“No time for eating,” said Sherlock, dismissively. “There's work to be done.”

“Then we'll leave you to it,” said John decisively. He went to pick the tray up, but Mary beat him to it.

“Let me,” she said. “It's my job, after all.”

“Then I'll get the door,” said John, and did so with a gallant bow that made Sherlock's left hand clench into a fist. They disappeared, still twitting nonsense at each other, and Sherlock waited until they were out of earshot before picking up the nearest item – a fountain pen that he'd stolen from Mycroft's desk and which probably cost more than Sherlock's laptop – and threw it hard at the opposite wall, where it broke with a sharp crack, sending blue ink spraying over the magnolia in a fine spray.

There was a long-suffering sigh from the doorway. “Must you?” asked Mycroft, looking at the mess with resignation.

Sherlock scowled at him. “Get out,” he demanded. “I'm trying to work.”

Mycroft failed to leave. “You could have handled that better, you know,” he said.

Sherlock did know, but hearing Mycroft say it aloud didn't help at all. “Out!” he repeated, pointing at the door to make his meaning clear enough that even Mycroft should be able to pick up on it.

“You might have more luck with him if you didn't act like a child,” Mycroft observed, then finally left Sherlock alone.

 

****

 

John's footsteps came back down the corridor a couple of hours later – far longer than it should take to eat a couple of sandwiches. They paused for the briefest of moments outside Sherlock's door, then continued on to John's room and disappeared inside. Sherlock glared at the crime report in front of him and told himself that it was better if he wasn't interrupted anyway.

There were sounds of movement from John's room for roughly half an hour – sorting and putting away the clothes Mycroft had arranged to have brought over for him, no doubt – and then there was silence as he settled to doing something quiet. Whatever it was kept him occupied for another few hours, then there came the unmistakeable sounds of him preparing for bed. Sherlock concentrated harder on what he was doing and resigned himself to not seeing John again until the next day.

He worked on into the night, shutting out everything else and focussing purely on Moriarty's network as much as he could with John only a wall away. When John's door creaked open at gone two in the morning, he was so deep in thought that it almost didn't register for a moment. There was a tentative tap on his door a moment later.

“Yes?” he called and John came inside, closing the door behind him. He was wearing pyjama bottoms and an old t-shirt, and his feet were bare. Sherlock was stuck on the sight of them for a moment, at how vulnerable John looked without the defence of shoes or socks.

“I thought you'd still be awake,” John said. “Sorry, I couldn't sleep. I kept thinking that the curtains were going to try and suffocate me, or the woman in that portrait was going to kill me with her glare.”

Sherlock waved him inside. “Make yourself at home,” he said. Perhaps Mycroft's decorating wasn't so bad if it meant late-night visits from John.

John accepted the invitation, settling down on the bed and picking up one of the crime reports that Sherlock had abandoned earlier. “You found anything yet?”

“Too much,” said Sherlock, rubbing a hand through his hair. “I think we're going to need Moriarty to make a move soon, or I'm going to be stuck here with these things forever.”

John frowned. “If he does make a move, surely it'll be either an attempt on our lives, or a bomb or something, and other people will get hurt?”

“Almost certainly,” said Sherlock. “But at least something will be happening. I can't stand this waiting.”

John's frown deepened and Sherlock noted to himself that that was probably not good, but John didn't say anything. He flicked through the file again instead. “I suppose there's nothing I can do to help,” he said.

Sherlock thought for a moment. The simple answer was 'no', because he needed to have all the information in his brain and there was no way that John was capable of catching the kind of connection that he was looking for, but he knew that John hated it when he felt useless.

He waved at a stack of reports. “You could try looking through those for any connections or similarities,” he said. “Anything that looks like he's made a mistake.”

“Right,” said John, pulling the reports towards himself.

He made it through two before he fell asleep. Sherlock turned to see him snoring gently, head thrown back against the headboard, and wondered if there was some way he'd be able to get John to fall asleep in his bed at Baker Street. If just seeing him in the bed that was technically Mycroft's sent such a possessive thrill through him, he could only imagine what it would be like if it was actually his bed that John felt relaxed enough to nod off in.

John slept through the rest of the night, at some stage making it into a horizontal position and curling up on top of the files. He woke at just past seven with a start and a gasp, sitting up and glancing around himself with a frown. _Nightmare,_ thought Sherlock, pretending not to have noticed.

John let out a yawn and stretched carefully, hands smoothing over his injuries as if to reassure himself that he'd survived them. “Do you put some kind of soporific on this bed?” he asked. “I can't seem to stay awake on it.”

“No, but Mycroft might have,” said Sherlock. “He does keep fussing about how much sleep I get.”

“Where did you sleep?” asked John. Sherlock chose not to answer such a ridiculous question and John let out a long sigh. “You didn't sleep,” he said wearily. “Sherlock, you have to sleep. You're still recovering-”

“Rubbish,” said Sherlock. “I don't have to do anything of the sort. What I have to do is catch Moriarty.”

“You can't do that if you collapse from exhaustion,” said John.

Sherlock waved that away. “I'll have a nap later,” he said dismissively. He didn't point out that even if he had wanted to sleep last night, there had been nowhere for him to do it. John would only say that he could have either gone and used John's room, or made John wake up and move. Sherlock couldn't really explain why he hadn't wanted to do either of those things. Having the slow rhythm of John's half-snores as a background to his thoughts had had a curiously stimulating effect on his brain.

There was a knock on the door before John could continue berating him and Mary came in, carrying a tray of breakfast.

“Good morning,” she greeted Sherlock. “Hello, John.” She gave John a cheerful grin that made Sherlock's stomach turn sour.

“Morning,” said John, pulling himself up and out of Sherlock's bed. “How are you today?”

“I'm good,” she said. “Did you want coffee?”

“That would be lovely,” said John with more feeling than it warranted.

Sherlock glared at his papers. This Mary thing was rapidly becoming intolerable. There had to be some way to nip it in the bud.

“What happened to Sarah?” Sherlock asked John bluntly after Mary had left. “I thought it was frowned upon to string two women along at the same time.”

“I'm not stringing either of them along,” protested John. Sherlock didn't reply to that, choosing to keep his gaze on John until he got a proper answer instead. John sighed. “Sarah came to see me in the hospital, and we decided that my life was in danger too often for it to really work between us.”

She'd dumped him because she didn't have the stomach for a man as exciting and brave as John. Sherlock knew there'd been a reason he didn't like her. “So you're already on the hunt for someone who doesn't mind how often you nearly die?”

“I'm not on the hunt,” said John crossly, and Sherlock wondered what, precisely, he'd said to upset him. Surely establishing the current state of your friend's dating situation was normal social behaviour – they certainly seemed to talk about it a lot on those ghastly soap operas that Mrs. Hudson watched. “I just like talking to Mary. She's nice.”

Nice. Sherlock could certainly never be described as nice, just as he'd never be blonde, curvy, or a woman. A lead weight sank into his stomach. “Well, I wish you'd keep from talking to her while I'm trying to think,” he said. “Her yapping irritates me.”

John's glare grew deadly. “Oh, god forbid the great Sherlock Holmes be disturbed by normal people having a chat,” he said. “I'll make sure to keep that kind of thing away from you in future.”

He left the room with as much of an angry strut as he could manage with his injuries, the door slamming behind him. Less than a minute later, it opened again to reveal Mycroft.

“My, my,” he said with a raised eyebrow. “What did you say to set him off like that?”

Sherlock glared at him. “Do you just spend all your time eavesdropping in the wardrobe?” he asked.

Mycroft ambled into the room and sat down on the bed. “Is that any way to talk to someone who's trying to help you?” he asked mildly.

“I don't need your help,” insisted Sherlock.

“It rather seems you do,” said Mycroft. “At the moment, all you seem to be doing is taking your jealousy out on John. Even if all you seek is to maintain your friendship, I'm sure that won't endear you to him.”

“What on earth would you know about it?” Sherlock asked him. “Just how much experience do you have?” Mycroft's relationship history was almost as barren as his own, for much the same reason. People were just so insufferably _dull_. John seemed to be the only exception.

“Not much,” admitted Mycroft, “but it's more than enough to know that you catch more flies with honey, so to speak. Might I suggest you start treating the good Doctor with at least some modicum of respect?”

That would rely on Sherlock having some mastery over his reactions when faced with John. So far, all the evidence pointed firmly to a complete lack of control. “This is none of your business,” he said firmly. “Go away, Mycroft, I'm busy.”

Mycroft raised an eyebrow. “Fine, fine,” he said. “Merely a suggestion. I actually came here to tell you that my security detail have informed me of an increase in suspicious activity around the house. Either I've annoyed the Iranians more than I was aware, or-”

“Moriarty knows we're here,” finished Sherlock.

“No one will be able to get in, of course,” said Mycroft. “Other than those already cleared for access.”

Sherlock frowned. “I suppose it's not too difficult to deduce that we'd come here,” he said slowly. “Perhaps he'll make a move, let something slip.”

“Or more likely,” said Mycroft, “he'll just hold steady, waiting for you to move. He has the advantage at the moment, after all.”

“If I can just find something in this lot,” said Sherlock, gesturing at the piles of crime reports that buried the desk, “I can change that. Piss off so I can get on with it.”

Mycroft let out a long sigh and stood up. “How did you end up without even a sprinkling of manners?” he wondered. “Mummy went to such lengths to try and teach them to you.”

“Manners are a waste of time, and you definitely don't warrant them,” said Sherlock.

Mycroft made a disappointed face but didn't comment further, finally heading for the door. Before he quite made it out of the room and out of Sherlock's way, he paused and said, “You've made it abundantly clear that you don't want my advice, but I feel that, as a good older brother, I should make you aware that if you did wish to pursue John, I think he'd be amenable to it.”

“What?” said Sherlock. “No, he wouldn't.”

“Certain evidence suggests otherwise,” said Mycroft.

Sherlock stared at him, mind running back through the available facts about John's sexuality and relationship preferences, and coming to the same conclusion that he'd already been aware of. “Even if he wasn't straight, it's abundantly clear that his 'type' is almost the complete opposite of me.”

Mycroft nodded with agreement. “There is a great deal to suggest that,” he allowed, “but there are also signs that he might well be persuaded to make an exception for you.”

Sherlock gave himself a split second to contemplate that, then allowed reality to reassert itself. “You're wrong,” he said. “Go away before I throw another pen.”

Mycroft sighed and opened the door. “Do try to treat my house with some respect,” he said. “I don't really relish having to redecorate every time you come to stay.”

Sherlock picked up the nearest pen but Mycroft had already left before he could throw it. He put it back down again and scowled to himself. Bloody Mycroft, trying to stir up things that Sherlock had already resigned himself to.

 

****

 

**2008**

“I would like you to meet her,” said Mycroft, glancing out of the window as they passed Thames House.

Sherlock didn't bother to ask who. “What for? She won't last – you find people as insufferable as I do, you just bother more to hide it.”

“She's special,” said Mycroft.

“She's not,” said Sherlock confidently. If Mycroft's attempt at a relationship had really been going to last, he wouldn't have been asking Sherlock to meet her, she'd have already been in the car when he’d picked Sherlock up, miles from home and without a penny on him after a particularly stimulating case.

Mycroft let out a long, careful breath. “She's close,” he said.

Sherlock made a disgusted noise. “What's the point? Why disrupt your life for her? I know how you like your routines.”

“There is always the possibility of new routines,” said Mycroft, which was vague even for him. Sherlock just snorted. There was a sigh. “Companionship is not a dirty word,” said Mycroft. “There are, by all accounts, incalculable benefits. You should try it.”

“No, thank you,” said Sherlock firmly as the car finally pulled up outside his building. He flung the door open. “I’m much more suited to being alone.”

Mycroft glanced out at the dilapidated building with distaste. “With two of you, you might be able to afford more than a damp-infested basement.”

Sherlock laughed. “How long do you really think anyone would last living with me?” He hopped out of the car without another word, his mind already darting on to the next thing. Lestrade had mentioned that he was stuck in Shoreditch – must be that kidnapping case. Perhaps if Sherlock helped him out, next time Sherlock found himself stranded he'd be more willing to come and fetch him and save him from having to go crawling to Mycroft.

 

****

 

John came back an hour or so later, clearly already bored out of his mind. “If you agree not to say anything else about Mary,” he said, “I'll keep helping you.”

“Finding Moriarty is going to benefit us both,” Sherlock pointed out, “as well as the population in general. Surely that's more important than whether or not I bother being polite to my brother's maid?”

John didn't say anything, he just crossed his arms and looked sternly at Sherlock until he relented. “Fine, fine. I'll be _nice_.” He imbued the word with all the disgust he felt for the concept.

John relaxed and nodded. “Good,” he said. “That wasn't so hard, was it? Now, where do you want me to start?”

Sherlock waved at the pile John had left on the bed earlier. “May as well carry on with those,” he said.

John settled in with the files and Sherlock managed another good few hours of work before the next interruption, from Mary again.

“I'm sorry, I just wondered if you'd be wanting any lunch.”

Sherlock repressed his sigh in the interests of not pissing John off and instead settled for a curt shake of his head.

“You should eat,” said John.

“Not hungry,” replied Sherlock. He'd eaten a piece of toast off the breakfast tray earlier. That would do him for the day.

John frowned but didn't say anything, clearly deciding it wasn't worth it. “Well, I am,” he said to Mary. He put aside the file he was working on. “I'll come down to the kitchen – I'm beginning to go cross-eyed from staring at these things.”

“Have you found anything yet?” asked Mary, glancing curiously at the nearest pile.

“Not yet,” said John, standing up and stretching gingerly, “but it's only a matter of time. Sherlock's very good at this kind of thing, you know.”

Sherlock struggled not to look pleased at the compliment.

“I'll be back in a while,” said John. “I should probably check over my injuries as well.”

“Do you need any help?” asked Sherlock. He still hadn't had a chance to look at John's wounds and he quite liked the idea of being close enough to catalogue them properly.

“I'll be fine,” said John, apparently oblivious to Sherlock's disappointment. “I am a doctor, after all.”

He left with Mary and Sherlock found himself glaring at the wall for a while. This thing was rapidly getting out of hand if a simple refusal could upset him that much. He turned back to the documents, but his flow had been interrupted and his body took the chance to remind him just how long it had been since he'd slept. He pushed the exhaustion aside for a while, but it began to affect his focus and in the end he had to give in.

The optimum time for a nap was twenty minutes. Sherlock glanced at his watch. He could easily manage that and be back at work before John returned. He pushed away from the desk and lay down on the bed, curling up in the dip that John had left behind. The covers smelt of him, a faint trace of antiseptic and sterile bandages over the warm scent that Sherlock now firmly associated with home. He shut his eyes, reminding himself to wake up in twenty minutes, and fell straight asleep with none of the usual tediousness of trying to shut his brain down.

When he woke up, John was sitting at the desk. Sherlock glanced at his watch and then groaned. Somehow he'd managed to sleep for far longer than he'd meant to.

“I knew your body couldn't keep going forever,” said John, sounding amused. “Maybe next time you should listen to your doctor.”

Sherlock sat up, trying to ignore the thrill that the idea of John being _his_ doctor sent through him. “I don't have time for this,” he said crossly. “Moriarty won't just be waiting around for us to catch him.”

“He probably will be sleeping, though,” John pointed out. Sherlock stood up and took the file out of his hands, then glared at him until he let out a put-upon sigh and removed himself from Sherlock's chair. “Pretending you're a robot is only going to get you so far.”

“Cyborg,” corrected Sherlock, sitting back down and pulling his research towards himself again.

“What?” asked John.

“Cyborg,” repeated Sherlock. “It's only my body which I wish I could replace with machinery, I'm perfectly happy with my brain. Human brain, mechanical body – cyborg.” He didn't mention his growing dissatisfaction with the way his brain kept focussing on John rather than the work in front of him. That was merely a software problem – he'd be able to root it out somehow.

 

****

 

“Colonel,” muttered John several hours later, stretched out in his accustomed place on the bed. “Prat.”

“What?” asked Sherlock, pulled out of his thought process.

“Oh, nothing,” said John. “Just this guy sounds like a right prat – he seems to have spent more time making sure that the police officer got his rank right than he did actually talking about the theft he was meant to have witnessed. Colonel Sebastian Moran – I bet he was one of those useless paper-pushing desk officers.”

Sherlock frowned. “Moran,” he said. He'd read that name somewhere else, where was it? He started to go through his folders again. “He was a suspect?”

“Uh, no,” said John, glancing back down at the document again. “Just a witness. Jewellery store in Wimbledon got turned over and he was walking his dog near-by at the time.”

“I'll wager he doesn't even have a dog,” said Sherlock, finally locating the folder he was looking for. “Look. Murder of a security guard who witnessed something he never had time to tell the police about. The house the murderer shot from was rented by a Colonel Sebastian Moran.”

John sat up straighter on the bed. “The same guy?” he asked. “Could just be a coincidence.”

Sherlock shook his head. “The police questioned him at the time, but there was evidence of a break-in, so they just assumed the murderer had taken advantage of an empty house. His statement, though-” he ran his eyes over it. “It's wrong,” he announced. “How did I miss this? Clear signs of a fake story. Give me that one.” He gestured impatiently at John until he handed over the file he'd been looking at. It took him less than a minute to spot the same signs in it. “He's focussing on his rank in order to avoid answering too many questions,” he said. “Trying to piss off the officer so that he just gives up and leaves him alone. It works, too – there's not nearly enough detail here. Not that there ever really is when you let the police question witnesses.” He grinned triumphantly at John. “We've got him! One of Moriarty's operatives – a major one, if he's trusted with the murder of a potential witness like that. We just need to find him, and he'll lead us to Moriarty.”

“Brilliant,” exclaimed John, beaming back. Sherlock allowed himself to be caught by the look in his eyes for several long moments, then tore himself away.

“We need to go back through all of these,” he said. “Find any reference to this man that we can – do we have a physical description? We can't rely upon him being stupid enough to use his real name more than twice, I shouldn't think.”

There was a tap on the door and then it swung open, revealing Mycroft. For once Sherlock was almost pleased to see him. “I need everything you have on a Colonel Sebastian Moran,” he commanded.

“Of course,” said Mycroft, far too easily. “You also need to eat,” he added. Ah, there was always a catch. “Come down and have dinner with John and myself, and I'll get my people on it immediately.”

Sherlock scowled at him. “No time to eat,” he said impatiently, wondering how often he'd have to repeat that before all the meddlesome busybodies in his life got the message.

“There's plenty of time,” said John, shifting the stacks of files off the bed and standing up. “You have to eat, Sherlock. You're not actually a cyborg, you know.”

Sherlock felt oddly betrayed that he'd sided with Mycroft, even though he could have predicted it. “We've just had a major breakthrough, John,” he pointed out. “There's so much to do.”

“It'll still be there after dinner,” said John firmly.

“I'll see you in the dining room,” said Mycroft, giving Sherlock an amused half-smile. He left the room with all the confidence of a man who knows exactly how an argument is going to end. Sherlock hated him with every fibre of his being.

“Come on,” said John wearily. “Please don't make me eat alone with your brother. He'll probably end up telling me things that I really don't want to know about my psychological profile, including a summary of my main problems.”

“You don't have any psychological problems,” said Sherlock immediately. “You're perfect.” He stilled a moment later – too much? John looked pleased though, ducking his head slightly to hide a smile. Sherlock sighed. “Fine,” he agreed ungraciously. “But if it means he starts on my psychological profile instead...”

John laughed. “I'm sure you can hold your own on that subject,” he said.

 

****

 

Dinner was just as awkward and annoying as Sherlock had assumed it would be. Mycroft and John made stilted conversation while Sherlock sat in silence, thinking about how much better it would be if Mycroft wasn't there. He poked at his food, trying to avoid eating too much of it, but both John and Mycroft kept turning to glare at him every time he tried to lay down his cutlery. Each time he found himself trapped in the dilemma of whether to continue eating in order to please John, or to stop in order to irritate Mycroft. Each time, John won.

By the time Mary came to clear the plates away, Sherlock had forced down just over half his plateful and Mycroft had established a great deal more about John through the medium of small-talk than Sherlock was comfortable with, or John aware of.

John leapt up as soon as Mary picked up his plate. “Let me help you.”

“Oh, you don't have to,” she said.

“I can't just sit and watch you,” said John, gathering up some of the dishes. “Makes me feel useless.” He followed her out in the direction of the kitchen, and Sherlock fought to keep the scowl off his face. Mycroft had already been insufferable enough about this, he didn't want to give him any more ammunition.

Mycroft twitched an eyebrow, but mercifully didn't say anything about it. “Sebastian Moran,” he said instead.

“Colonel Sebastian Moran,” interjected Sherlock. “He must have at least a military record for you to dig up. I texted Lestrade, but there's nothing about him on their system.”

“I shall have my people look into it immediately,” said Mycroft. He sat back, fingers resting on the table, and regarded Sherlock for rather a long time in a way that made Sherlock want to fling cutlery at him. “You're looking much better,” he said. “John has had an extremely beneficial effect on you. I wonder if even you know the full depths of it.”

Sherlock wrapped a fist around his spoon, but managed to stop himself from throwing it. “None of your business,” he decreed.

Mycroft sighed. “Sherlock,” he said carefully. “I am trying to help you. Your relationship with John could develop into an extremely advantageous connection if you were to handle it correctly.”

“What we have is fine,” said Sherlock, desperately hoping that John came back soon, with or without Mary, just to end this conversation.

Mycroft ignored him. “Treat John with slightly more care than your usual social interactions. Express some measure of your regard, and avoid insulting him unless you really can't help yourself. Physical proximity and a small amount of carefully controlled touching will provide you with a base on which to build a change in your relationship, just as long as you can keep your childish impulses under control-”

Sherlock couldn't restrain himself any longer; he threw the spoon at Mycroft. It hit him square on the forehead with a gentle thonk, then fell to the table with a clattering sound which, of course, was when John came back into the room.

“I see that that is a vain hope,” said Mycroft in a resigned voice. He hadn't reacted to the assault at all, or even moved to deflect the spoon, and Sherlock hated the sanctimonious git with every cell in his body.

“What on earth?” asked John. “Can't I leave you two alone for five minutes? What the hell is going on?”

Sherlock stood up. “Nothing,” he said. “I'm going to get back to work.”

“Did you throw a spoon at him?” John asked incredulously. “Honestly, Sherlock-”

Sherlock interrupted him. “Everything you can get on Sebastian Moran,” he reminded Mycroft. “As quickly as possible.”

Mycroft smiled coldly. “Of course,” he said. “You concentrate on your own concerns, I'll manage the rest.”

Sherlock sent him one more glare for that insinuation, then swept out of the room, past both John and Mary, who was gaping at them as if she'd never seen anyone throw cutlery at her employer before.

 

****

 

**1999**

Christmas was always excruciating, but this year it seemed to have gone to the extreme. Sherlock spent as much time as he could locked in his bedroom, stubbornly ignoring his mother's attempts to get him to come out and talk to people. What possible interest could he have in talking to cousin Jessica? She was even more insufferably ditzy now than she had been last year and if he had to suffer through another five minutes of her endless discussion of her wedding plans, he was going to be forced to tell her exactly how often Paul had cheated on her in the last three years and then there was going to be the kind of emotional scene that he deplored.

Mycroft's distinctive knock sounded on the door just as Sherlock was contemplating taking the edge off the tedium with the little vial that he had thrown in the bottom of his bag as he'd been packing to come home for the holidays. He hadn't intended to take any whilst at home – far too many eagle-eyed people who'd waste far too much of his time with speeches and attempted interventions that his occasional little thrill really didn't warrant - but the more time that dragged by, the more tempted he was by it.

“Go away,” he called, but that had never worked on Mycroft, and neither had a locked door. He was inside the room a moment later, eyeing Sherlock's sprawl on the bed with distaste.

“You should at least attempt to act like you're capable of human interaction,” he said. “Some of our relatives have come quite a distance to see us.”

“Not to see me,” Sherlock pointed out. “None of them can stand me,” he added, with some pride.

Mycroft sighed as if Sherlock's refusal to come down was a personal affront and perched himself on a chair. Sherlock noted with some pleasure that his brother had gained in weight again since the summer.

“I had wondered if your friend would be joining us,” Mycroft said. “The one you spent those few weeks with in the summer.”

Sherlock clenched his teeth and turned his gaze to the ceiling. “Not my friend,” he said shortly. “I severed the connection – far too time-consuming, and there was so little benefit to it.”

“Ah,” said Mycroft, in a far too knowing voice. Sherlock glared harder at the ceiling and then resolutely shut his eyes. He didn't want to talk about Victor Trevor, he didn't even want to think about him.

“Well,” said Mycroft, “perhaps there will be more benefit in your next friendship.” He imbued 'friendship' with just enough meaning for Sherlock to tell that he knew exactly how things had been between him and Victor, despite all Sherlock's attempts to keep it private.

“There won't be a next one,” said Sherlock. “It was an exploration, that was all, and all it showed was that other people really are as dire to be around as I'd thought. I don't need friends.”

Mycroft was silent for an irritatingly long time, then stood up. “Come down soon,” he said. “Mummy is becoming impatient.”

Sherlock remained where he was, mentally trying to push Mycroft out of the door. _Go away, go away, go away, go away,_ he chanted in his head as Mycroft crossed the room.

Mycroft paused in the doorway. “And come down sober,” he added. Sherlock gritted his teeth in impatience. Damn him for always knowing everything.

 

****

 

John appeared in Sherlock's room an hour later. The aga-warmed tinge to his skin and the faint smell of baking overlaid with washing up liquid revealed that he'd spent the time in the kitchen, helping Mary with the clearing up before she went home for the day.

“Did you really have to throw a spoon at him?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Sherlock firmly. “It was imperative.”

John's face cracked into a smile and he sniggered, shaking his head. “I should probably be disapproving,” he said, “but the look on his face was priceless.”

Sherlock grinned at him. “It was, wasn't it?” he said, remembering.

John's sniggers turned into giggles, and Sherlock let himself join in, unaccountably relieved at the reaction.

John collapsed onto the bed and let out a long sigh. “I can't wait to get out of here and back home,” he said.

“Really?” asked Sherlock. “I'd have thought you were enjoying getting to spend all this time with Mary.” He managed to keep the emotion out of his voice when he said her name, but it was a close thing.

John shrugged. “She's nice to talk to, but nothing beats being in your own home,” he said. “Besides, you hate it here, don't you? That's why you've been so moody.”

Partially true. “I don't think it's much of a secret that Mycroft annoys me.”

John snorted. “No,” he agreed. “Older siblings are a pain.”

“I just don't understand why he has to be so controlling,” said Sherlock, letting his annoyance spill out of him. “I'm perfectly capable of running my own life, I don't need his constant stream of useless advice and unhelpful little comments.”

John shrugged. “I expect he thinks he's helping,” he said. “That's what Harry always used to claim.”

“Meddling is not the same as helping,” declared Sherlock. “If he wanted to help, he could just leave me alone until I asked him for something.”

“Family never seems to work like that,” said John with a sigh. “It's meddling or nothing.”

Sherlock scowled. “I'd rather nothing,” he muttered.

John shrugged. “It was nice of him to let us stay,” he said. “We're not exactly the easiest of houseguests.”

By which he clearly meant that Sherlock wasn't the easiest of houseguests. “Well, Mycroft's not the easiest of hosts,” he said, turning back to his pile of reports.

John sat up and clamped a hand on Sherlock's shoulder as if in solidarity. “Well, let's get on with these folders then, so we can escape from here before you two decide to start World War Three.”

He removed his hand in order pick up a stack of folders, but Sherlock could feel the warmth of it long after John was buried in the research. He let out a long, careful breath and turned his own attention back to the crime reports.

 

****

 

John fell asleep in Sherlock's bed again. It was odd how much it affected Sherlock when he just let his eyes shut and fell asleep, sprawled out over crime reports and blankets, although Sherlock tried to shut down the reaction. There was no reason why John asleep should stimulate different emotions in him than John awake did. He couldn't stop himself from pulling a blanket over him, though. Mycroft's house was cold at night.

Sherlock managed a few more hours of work, concentrating hard on not just turning and watching John's chest move gently up and down. In the end, he was forced to admit that his brief nap earlier wasn't going to be enough to keep him going. Frowning, he regarded the problem of the sleeping doctor in his bed.

The obvious solution was to wake him and get him to move to his own room, but Sherlock found himself reluctant to do that. Even if he disregarded the useless, soft sensation that the sight of a sleeping John awoke in him, the fact remained that John had displayed signs of discontent at sleeping in the other room, and moving might disturb him to the extent that he wouldn't be able to fall back asleep. He was still recovering, it would be bad-mannered to force him to move and possibly miss out on sleep, surely?

Instead, Sherlock moved all the folders off the bed, out from around John, gently convinced him to roll onto his side, and slid in next to him. It was a large bed and Sherlock was only going to be using it for a few hours. John would probably never even know he'd been there.

John's back was warm against his and the soft rhythm of his breathing cut straight through the distractions that Sherlock's mind seemed eager to throw at him whenever he tried to sleep. He shut his eyes and allowed himself a small smile. After all, they had both managed to survive everything that Moriarty had thrown at them so far, they had a definite start on tracking him down, and John wanted to go back to Baker Street with Sherlock more than he wanted to stay here, where Mary was. Things could be a lot worse.

 

****

 

Sherlock awoke to the unpleasant sight of Mycroft gazing down at him, one hand still on his shoulder where he'd shaken him out of sleep. “Sherlock,” he said in an undertone.

Sherlock sat up immediately, throwing off the hand. One glance revealed that John was already blinking awake, frowning at Sherlock with confusion. So much for leaving the bed before John even knew he was there.

Sherlock glared at Mycroft. “What?” he hissed.

“While I would usually do nothing that might disturb you actually getting some sleep,” said Mycroft, stepping back slightly as if afraid Sherlock was going to take his annoyance out on him physically, “I thought you might like to know that my security have reported an attempted break in.”

“Break in?” repeated John sleepily, sitting up and rubbing at his face.

Sherlock sprung out of bed. “What happened?” he asked. “Is there anything tangible – CCTV, possibly forensics? I suppose your security were too feeble to actually catch anyone, but I'll need to talk to them.”

“Of course,” said Mycroft with a sigh. “I asked them to wait in the drawing room for you. Maxwell will explain it all to you. I am going back to bed – I have an important meeting with the Israeli Ambassador early tomorrow morning.” He left without betraying any of his no doubt immense inner amusement at the situation he'd found them in.

“Wait,” frowned John. “Were you actually sleeping?”

Sherlock spared him a glance. “I was wasting my time while Moriarty was trying to get in,” he said. “Come on, get up.”

John stumbled out of bed, still clearly half-asleep. “Moriarty?” he repeated.

“Of course Moriarty!” exclaimed Sherlock. He gave up waiting for John's brain to start functioning and started heading for the drawing room, forcing himself to keep to a pace that John could keep up with.

“Wait,” said John again, following behind him. “Were you asleep in the same bed as me?”

“I was asleep in my bed,” Sherlock pointed out. “Not my fault you were already there.”

“Right,” said John faintly, and mercifully left the subject alone.

 

****

 

Maxwell and his men were of little or no help. All they were able to tell Sherlock was that three figures had made an attempt at scaling the back wall of Mycroft's garden, but disappeared as soon as security appeared. The CCTV showed nothing useful, despite the many times Sherlock viewed it. Three men with their faces covered had crept out of an alleyway, ducked across the road and started up the wall with the aid of ropes, then dropped back down when a guard and his dog made their presence known from inside the garden. They had then run back across the road to the alleyway, where Mycroft's men reported they'd had a vehicle waiting for them.

There was nothing at all to learn from their clothing or movements beyond what Sherlock already knew. The men were professionals, probably among the best, clearly hired just for this rather than employed on a more permanent basis if their urgent dash at the first sign of trouble was anything to go by. There was no loyalty there.

John left him to it when Sherlock announced his intention to search the area around the wall in the half-light of dawn. He was followed outside by a whole cohort of security men, which he found intensely irritating but was unable to do anything about.

There was nothing to find, even with a detailed examination, and Sherlock informed the nearest guard exactly what he thought of their failure to apprehend the trespassers so that he could interrogate them, which was borne with a stoic silence that only increased Sherlock's annoyance.

When Sherlock finally went back up to his room, he found John curled up in his bed, asleep again. He stopped and stared for a moment, wondering why John hadn't gone back to his own room. He was in his pyjamas, whereas he had been fully clothed earlier. He'd come upstairs, gone into his own room to change, then come back to Sherlock's room to sleep. It didn't make any sense, not unless John really hated Mycroft's spare room, which was a strong possibility.

Sherlock watched John's sleeping form for several minutes, at a loss, then pushed all thoughts of him out of his head. There would be time to deduce John later, he had to deal with Moriarty first.

He sat back down at his desk, no longer willing to waste any time on sleep. Moriarty had made a move, after all – there was no more time for playing around.

Mycroft came by on his way to his meeting in order to give Sherlock the file on Colonel Sebastian Moran. Sherlock took it from him without bothering to speak and immediately started to flick through it.

Mycroft spent an indecently long time observing John as he slept. “Perhaps I was being too hasty in offering you advice,” he said. “You seem to be managing quite well on your own.”

“I never need your advice,” replied Sherlock. “Especially as, for the hundredth time, it is none of your business!” He spoke rather louder than he'd intended to and John stirred at the sound. Sherlock glared at Mycroft. “Out!” he declared. “He needs sleep.”

Mycroft looked back over at John, who had settled again, apparently without waking. He let out an infinitely-patient sigh. “Sherlock, you know I only have your best interests at heart,” he said. “You must find it as tedious as I do to have you spout the same things to me every time I attempt to help you.”

“Then stop attempting,” snapped Sherlock.

Mycroft repeated his sigh and then, thankfully, left the room. Sherlock returned his attention to Moran's file.

Son of Sir Augustus Moran, who'd been Ambassador to India, Sebastian Moran had gone to Eton and Oxford, then joined the Army. Talented marksman, distinguished himself in the Gulf War, recruited by the SAS but discharged dishonourably after being discovered on an illegal hunting trip in India, in which several endangered species were targeted, including tigers. There were also allegations that he'd run a large-scale gambling ring within his regiment, but nothing was ever proven. By all accounts, his superiors were just relieved to be able to get rid of him without a big fuss.

He moved to London after being discharged, spent several years frittering around with the family money, becoming increasingly embroiled in the world of gambling as that started to run out. There were signs that he was getting deeper and deeper into the criminal world, and then- nothing. He'd disappeared almost completely from all available sources around three years ago, and the only signs of him were infrequent, tiny things, like the house he'd rented to shoot the security guard from.

Sherlock slammed the folder shut with disgust. What good was a file that ended three years ago? Clearly, that must have been when Moriarty recruited him, and he'd taken care to scrub all traces since then.

 _It's all data_ , he reminded himself, turning back to the front of the file in order to go through it again more carefully.

 

****

 

**2010**

Sherlock was unsurprised to find Mycroft waiting for him when he finally left his bedroom, two days after the incident with the cab driver. John was clearly absent – probably out job-hunting, if his concentrated frown as he'd browsed NHSjobs.com last night had been any indication.

Sherlock ignored his brother for the moment, heading straight for the kettle. He needed coffee if he was going to have to deal with this.

Mycroft was unwilling to wait. “He's very well-suited to you,” he said.

“No one asked your opinion,” Sherlock told him.

Mycroft gave him a smile with a sharp edge. “You once asked me how long I thought anyone could stand to live with you. I would say that, in the case of Doctor Watson, a lot longer than anticipated.”

Sherlock turned back to the kettle, which was refusing to do anything. Where was his coffee? This was so much easier when John was around.

“Of course,” added Mycroft, “you could still drive him away. We both know you excel at that.”

Sherlock didn't want to drive John away. It was extremely irritating – he'd gone into this with the intention of finding some idiot to share with for just long enough to get settled so firmly into Baker Street that Mrs. Hudson would be unwilling to evict him once it was just him, even if he could only afford a fraction of the rent. Now, though, he was already trying to plot ways to make sure John stayed for far longer than the six weeks that he had originally calculated, and also working to involve him in as much of Sherlock's life as he could. He wondered if it was some by-product of having his life saved in so dramatic a manner.

“I would suggest working hard not to,” continued Mycroft, as if Sherlock was actually participating in the conversation rather than just glaring at the kettle. “I believe having him around would do you the world of good.”

Sherlock finally turned at that. “I'm fine as I am,” he declared. “You know I'm happiest alone, even if you insist on intruding with these pointless conferences.”

“You have made it more than clear that you don't appreciate my presence,” said Mycroft testily. “That is not the same as being alone. Doctor Watson would have a significant ameliorating effect on your life – not just by saving it on occasion, but also by informing you that you need to plug a kettle in before it will boil.”

Sherlock glanced back at the kettle's power lead. Disconnected – oh, yes, he'd wanted to charge his phone last night. He glared at Mycroft as if it was his fault – well, it probably was, somehow. “It's still none of your business,” he said. “Why do you always feel the need to meddle in my life?”

Mycroft stood up, leaning on his umbrella as if he thought he was John Steed. It was a wonder that he had never bought himself a bowler hat. “It's the trial of an older sibling,” he said. “I will leave you to it, then, as my advice is clearly going unheeded.”

“Thank God,” said Sherlock.

“Just do try to keep in mind that no man is an island,” said Mycroft, turning towards the door. “Not even you – you are still a man, even if you are set upon pretending otherwise.”

He left before Sherlock could point out that at least he didn't try and pretend that he was an entire government system. He glared at the door for a while, and then turned back to plug the kettle in, wiping the conversation from his mind. Sherlock refused to allow Mycroft to influence how he treated John, or how this tenuous living arrangement was going to end up.

 

****

 

John woke up half an hour later, stretching awkwardly and making a tiny groaning noise in his throat that Sherlock immediately decided he wanted to hear every morning.

“Sorry,” he said, sitting up. “I should probably stop falling asleep in your bed.”

“It's fine,” said Sherlock. “Your room is a little stifling.”

“Yeah,” agreed John. “I was actually waiting for you to come back to find out what you'd discovered. I must have dozed off again – it's the painkillers, I suppose. I seem to be sleepy all the time.”

“I didn't find anything, at any rate,” said Sherlock. “Except that Mycroft's security are useless. He's given me Moran's file, but there's been no sign of him for three years, so that's largely useless as well.”

“Can I see?” asked John and Sherlock handed the file over.

John flicked through it, pausing to read the occasional section in more depth. Sherlock watched the way his brow alternated between furrowed and smooth, and wondered what his skin would feel like right then, still warm from sleep.

John's left ear was one and a half millimetres higher than his right. Not enough to mar the perfection of his form, but just enough to make him unique. His hair was as messy as it could get in its military-length style, pressed out of shape by the pillow he'd been lying on. Sherlock's pillow.

John let out an amused grunt.

“What?” asked Sherlock.

“His commanding officers must have hated him,” he said. “You can read it in their reviews - all the little phrases that are code for things they're not really allowed to write. 'A dominant member of the team' – He was a bully. 'Clear concept of his own skills' – Wouldn't shut up about how amazing he was. Must have been a nightmare to have on a squad.”

Sherlock leaned back in his chair. “Plus the gambling,” he said. “That seems like the sort of thing to lead to bad blood.”

“Yeah,” agreed John. He kept flicking through to the end of the file, then put it down. “Gambling seems to be a continuing thread there. I wonder just how much he's lost over the years.”

Sherlock felt the stomach-descending moment of wonder that came every time John put his finger exactly on the nub of a problem. “That's how we'll find him,” he realised. “John, you're brilliant! Of course – gambling! It's an addiction – he'll still be doing it, Moriarty won't have any interest in stopping him, we just have to find where.”

He spun in his chair to get to his laptop in order to bring up a list of the most high-rolling illegal gambling establishments in London. A man like Moran wouldn't join a back room game in a pub, he'd be part of one of the larger underground clubs.

John got up to come and stand behind him, so close that Sherlock was partially distracted by his proximity and had to force himself to apply his brain to what he was actually doing.

“We'll have to go round them all individually,” he said. “If I can get Mycroft to let us out.”

“You can get us in?” asked John, and Sherlock could hear the thrill of the chase in his voice. This was the bit that John liked, not the sitting around studying documents. Sherlock made a mental note to make sure he provided John with plenty of chances to do some fieldwork at regular intervals so that he could indulge that. It wouldn't do for him to get bored of helping Sherlock and find some full-time normal job that kept him out of Sherlock's way and brought him into contact with nice, dull women like Sarah and Mary.

“Of course,” he said. “We just have to be able to blend in. Are you a gambling man, John?”

John tensed a little behind Sherlock, just enough for a red flag to go up. “I've been known to have the occasional flutter,” he said carefully. “I don't have a particularly high success rate, though.”

Ah, probably wise to keep a close eye on him tonight, then. “That will just make us all the more welcome,” said Sherlock. “And we'll be using Mycroft's money, so there's no need to worry about keeping hold of it.”

“Is Mycroft going to know we're using his money?” asked John, sounding amused.

Sherlock shrugged. “Eventually,” he said. “No doubt he'll guess when he sees his bank statement.”

John laughed. “I should probably be discouraging you from stealing from your brother,” he said.

Sherlock made a disgusted noise. “It's for a good cause,” he pointed out. “We need Moran to get to Moriarty, and this is going to lead us straight to him.”

There was a faint knock on the door, then Mary came in, carrying the breakfast tray. She gave them both a curious look. “Everything okay?” she asked.

“Fine,” said John, stepping away from Sherlock to help her with the tray. “We've had a bit of a breakthrough. We're going to be able to track down one of Moriarty's men.”

“Oh, that's good news,” she said, but she didn't sound wholly convincing. Sherlock wondered if she was hoping John would stay longer, and scowled at her. John didn't belong in this museum of a house with some floozy of a maid. He belonged in Baker Street, with Sherlock.

“Are you going to eat any of this?” John asked him, looking down at the careful pile of toast. Sherlock just made a disgusted noise in response. John sighed and poured out a cup of tea. “Well, you're drinking this, anyway,” he said firmly, setting it down by Sherlock's elbow. Sherlock regarded it blackly.

Mary half-laughed. “He's just like a teenager, isn't he?” Sherlock turned his glare onto her instead, but was ignored.

“Do you want to come down and eat in the kitchen then?” Mary asked John. “Keep me company?”

Sherlock felt his scowl kick up a notch and tried to smooth it over before John saw it and became annoyed. He'd spent rather too much time pissing John off recently, and there were limits to even his patience. Keeping him in a good mood would be worth losing him for the time it took him to eat breakfast. Sherlock frowned to himself and turned back to his laptop to cover his reaction. He couldn't remember ever actually altering his behaviour merely to keep someone else happy. He wondered what other changes he should be expecting as time passed and this unavoidable feeling for John continued to take over his life.

John sent a quick look at him, then shook his head at Mary. “We've work to do here,” he said. “Thanks, though.”

Sherlock swiftly strangled the urge to smile. All these emotional ups-and-downs; it was worse than giving up smoking had been.

“Fair enough,” said Mary, but there was a displeased edge to her voice. Sherlock typed something to stop himself smirking at her as she left the room.

John settled down at the table, concentrating on preparing himself some toast for a few moments. “You're going to drink that,” he said, “even if you leave it until it goes cold.”

Sherlock let out a long-suffering sigh and forced himself to take a sip of the tea. He supposed it was the least he could do after John had turned down that woman, but he really didn't see what all the fuss was about when it came to eating and drinking regularly. He ate enough to keep his brain functioning, that was all that mattered.

John made a tiny, satisfied noise, and turned back to his toast. A few more minutes passed in companionable silence, with Sherlock taking a sip of his tea every so often to see if he could coax the noise out of John again.

“You know,” said John, polishing off the last of his slice of toast and starting to spread butter on the next one, “you've spent a lot of time over the last few days watching me when you think I'm not noticing.” Sherlock froze for a micro-second, then forced himself to keep moving as if nothing had happened. “Some people might almost take it for concern. You know I'm fine now, right? Everything's healing up nicely, you don't need to worry.”

Worry was only the tiniest sliver of what Sherlock felt every time he looked at John, but it was much the safest part for John to know about. “I've no idea what you're talking about,” he said airily, in a manner aimed at confirming John's opinion.

John nodded to himself. “Of course not,” he said quietly. There was silence for another few minutes, save for the crunch of toast and the tapping of the laptop keys. “Also,” he added, just as Sherlock decided that he was out of danger, “Mary really is just someone to talk to. No need to be possessive.”

Sherlock slammed the laptop lid shut. “I'm not being _possessive_ ,” he hissed.

John had the gall to laugh. “Sherlock, you're the most possessive person I know, about the things you haven't dismissed as useless.”

“Over the last few days you've commandeered large parts of my room, my breakfast, and even my bed,” Sherlock pointed out. “I do not believe that my response has been in any way 'possessive'.”

“I did say 'about the things you haven't dismissed as useless',” John repeated.

Sherlock glared at him and stood up. “I'm going to have a shower,” he announced. Time to escape before John pressed too far. The man's deductive skills might be lacking, but he had an annoying tendency to stubbornly nag at a problem until he had an answer.

Sherlock left John eating toast and looking self-satisfied, as if Sherlock's retreat had been an admission of some kind. It probably had been, but Sherlock was too irritated to worry about that right now. What he needed was a long, hot shower and a chance to suppress all these feelings back down to where John couldn't even catch a hint of them. It was clear that a night spent in the same room as a sleeping John was not conducive to that goal.

 

****

 

John was just finishing off the remnants of breakfast when Sherlock came back. He nodded at Sherlock's desk. “I noticed you hadn't finished your tea,” he said, “so I took the liberty of pouring you another cup.” He fixed Sherlock with his I'm-a-doctor-do-as-I-say glare. “You're going to drink it all, or I'll just keep refilling it.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “It's really not necessary to treat me like a child just because my brother does,” he said.

John stood up and walked over to pointedly push the tea closer to Sherlock. “You seem much more prone to acting like a child around him, so I think it probably is,” he said. He clamped one hand on Sherlock's shoulder and gently squeezed it, which derailed any hope Sherlock had held of replying in even a semi-intelligent way. “Drink it. I'm going to shower, but I'll know if you just get rid of it somewhere.”

“I wasn't aware that a medical degree came with psychic powers,” said Sherlock, finding his tongue as John moved away.

John snorted. “Then you clearly haven't been around enough doctors.” He left with one final, meaningful eyebrow twitch at the cup.

Sherlock regarded it for a moment. John's insistence pointed towards there being more to this than simple tea – no doubt he'd spiked the thing with vitamins, or the antibiotics the hospital had given Sherlock and which he'd been carefully ignoring. He sniffed it carefully, then gave up and just drank the thing. If it would make John happy, he really couldn't bring himself to make a fuss about it, and if John was badgering Sherlock about his health, then his own must be on the mend.

John came back showered, dressed and having obviously changed his dressings. He inspected the cup carefully and Sherlock glared at him.

“I drank it,” he said irritably.

John smiled at him in a way that completely disarmed Sherlock's annoyance. “Good,” he said, then settled himself on the bed. “Now, where were we?”

The morning passed much the same way as the last few days had. Progress on putting together a profile of Moriarty's methods continued to crawl along at a snail's pace, but Sherlock refused to feel frustrated. It was all important data to have access to in his brain and tonight they would, hopefully, be able to take at least one proper step closer.

Mycroft swept in at around lunchtime.

“Go away,” said Sherlock automatically.

Mycroft ignored him. “Doctor Watson,” he said to John. “Mary has provided some sandwiches for us in the dining room. I wonder if you would mind coming down to join me – I do find eating alone to be so tiresome.”

“Ah, of course,” said John, setting his file aside and standing up. “Coming, Sherlock?”

“Not hungry,” said Sherlock.

“I'm sure my brother is too busy deducing to bother with food,” said Mycroft snidely. Sherlock immediately looked up suspiciously and was caught by the faintly triumphant look in Mycroft's eyes. What was the meddling bastard up to now? Sherlock almost revised his decision not to eat lunch, but it was too late.

Mycroft and John left, Mycroft still looking quietly smug while John cast a glare at Sherlock, clearly annoyed to be stuck eating alone with Mycroft.

Sherlock's mind ran through all the things that Mycroft might possibly be plotting that would involve John and he felt a distinct sense of unease run down his spine. He resolutely pushed it aside. There was nothing he could do about it – Mycroft was a law unto himself and Sherlock had never had any success with trying to influence his actions.

He was left in peace for almost half an hour before Mary came back in, carrying a pile of linen. “Time for clean sheets,” she announced.

Sherlock groaned. “Is that really necessary?” he asked. “I'm trying to work.”

“Yes,” she said firmly, setting the pile down on a chair. “It won't take more than five minutes, then I'll leave you alone again.”

Sherlock's scowl went unnoticed as she started to strip the bed and he watched with annoyance as the old, John-scented sheets were pulled off and thrown to one side. He'd just have to hope that John continued his habit of falling sleep in Sherlock's bed so that the fresh ones gained the smell as well.

“There, all done,” said Mary once she'd finished. “That really wasn't so hard, was it?” There was a faint edge to her voice, and Sherlock wondered if he should be bothered that she clearly disliked him. It seemed like the sort of thing that John would care about, but Sherlock couldn't imagine why. What did it matter if Mycroft's maid didn't like him? It wasn't as if there weren't plenty of other people who felt the same way – the vast majority of people, in fact. Only John really seemed to be the exception, unless you counted Mycroft's meddling as some twisted form of affection.

John was all he needed, really. He couldn't bring himself to care about Mary's tense shoulders as she left the room, as long as John kept liking him.

 

****

 

“I really do not understand your brother at all,” John announced when he came back.

“What did he say?” Sherlock asked.

John shook his head helplessly. “I have no idea,” he said. “I think I might need some form of Mycroft Translator if we're going to stay here much longer.”

“There's no need,” said Sherlock. “He never says anything worth listening to, even when you can understand it.”

John sat down on the bed. “He told me all about some guy you used to know. I've no idea why.”

“Victor,” realised Sherlock immediately. Interesting – Mycroft was seeking to warn John as much as to enlighten him.

“Yeah,” said John. “Not sure how some old uni friend of yours is relevant, unless that's the kind of thing that counts for small talk in your family.”

“Not sure 'friend' is entirely accurate,” said Sherlock, thinking back. He hadn't wasted brain power on Victor for a very long time – trust Mycroft to remember that he'd existed at all. “We spent rather more time having sex than having conversation.”

John choked. “What?” he asked, sounding shocked. Clearly Mycroft had omitted that detail. “You and Victor were...”

“'Fuck Buddies' is probably the most accurate term,” said Sherlock, making a face at the vulgarity of it. “Before the incident with his father, anyway. After that, he stopped seeing me at all.”

John nodded. “Mycroft did mention that,” he said. “And that after that, you started taking cocaine.”

Damn Mycroft. The two things were almost entirely unlinked, there was no reason for him to have suggested an association to John. “I was bored,” said Sherlock. “University was extremely dull. That's why I left before completing my studies.”

“Right,” said John, but he was looking at Sherlock with an odd, analysing look.

Sherlock resolutely turned his back on it, refocussing his attention on the research. “I'm clean now,” he reminded him. “Have been for years.”

“I know,” said John, but he stayed where he was for a few more minutes and Sherlock could almost feel his gaze on his back.

Eventually John turned back to his own pile of documents with a tiny sigh and then there was silence for a long time as they both carried on with their work.

John lay down on the bed to read after an hour or so, and it wasn't long after that that Sherlock heard his breathing slow and soften into sleep. He let himself glance back at him then, noting the way he'd just dozed off with a report still in his hand, face turned into the pillow. Maybe there was something in what he'd said that morning about his painkillers making him drowsy.

For the first time, Sherlock wondered if taking a man who was still recovering from major surgery on a jaunt around some of London's most dangerous gambling dens was a good idea, but quickly dismissed the thought. If John wasn't up to it, he'd have said something. All they were going to be doing was playing a few games, asking a few questions and keeping an eye out for Moran. There was nothing strenuous about any of that.

He carried on working, letting himself get lost in the intricacies of Moriarty's empire with John's calm breathing as a background to the stream of data he was gathering. The change came so slowly that he didn't notice for a while, John's breathing growing hoarser and more strained, until a red flag went up in Sherlock's brain. _Something is wrong._

He turned to the bed, leaping out of the chair when he saw the manner in which John's lungs were struggling to pull in air and the ashen cast to his skin. “John,” he called. “John, wake up.”

John didn't move.

Sherlock grabbed hold of his shoulders, noting that his skin was clammy as well as pale and that his lips were tinged blue. “John,” he said again, desperation running through his voice. “John! Come on, wake up!”

John's eyelids fluttered and his breathing grew even more laboured as he started to wake up and fought to control it. He opened his eyes, wide and panicked, hands scrambling for purchase on Sherlock's jacket.

“Calm down, John,” Sherlock commanded him. “Slow, even breaths.”

John shut his eyes for a moment and when he opened them again, Sherlock could see stubborn determination filling them rather than panic. His breathing started to take on another pattern, slower and more careful, but it was clear from the increasingly hoarse rattle in his windpipe that the problem was more than just panic-driven.

Sherlock let go of one of John's shoulders so that he could pull his phone out of his pocket, texting Mycroft one-handedly, without looking away from John's face.

_Get a doctor to my room. Now. SH_

“Come on, John,” he said, dropping the phone as soon as he'd hit the send button. John's breathing was getting harder, his chest surging with the effort of it and his eyelids starting to flutter.“Keep breathing – you don't get to duck out on me this easily.”

John's grip on Sherlock's jacket grew tighter, pulling him in closer, and he managed a violent shake of his head. “Not. Happening,” he forced out between loud breaths.

“Don't waste air talking,” said Sherlock. He pulled John up further, shifting on the bed in order to support his back with one arm. “Just keep taking deep breaths.”

John nodded, eyes shutting for a moment with exhaustion as he continued to fight for oxygen. Sherlock found himself feeling completely helpless in a way that he absolutely hated. How was he meant to solve the problem if it was John's own body that had turned against him?

John's breathing was beginning to sound weaker as he got more tired, every inhale taking longer, every exhale sounding more like it could be the last. Sherlock felt his mind begin to seize up with the implications of that and he fought to keep his hands steady on John, trying hard not to just grab him and shake him until he just _breathed_ for God's sake, just got his act together and stopped making Sherlock's own chest feel like it was beginning to constrict.

“Come on, John,” he gritted out, his voice almost unrecognisable. “You don't get a choice on this. Keep breathing – I need you.” He leant his head forward, resting his forehead against John's hair. “I need you,” he repeated, quieter, the truth of the words feeling so solid and firm that they should be able to sink down into John's bones, into his lungs, and force them to start working properly.

It took an unforgivably long time for him to notice the incongruity – nearly a whole second. John had been inside the house for days, and before that, in the hospital – no time for swimming for weeks, and certainly he'd been scrubbed clean of any trace of the pool where the explosion had happened. His typical shampoo was the cheap, generic kind, scented with what a chemist who'd never left a lab thought ocean waves might be like. Why, then, did his hair smell of chlorine?

Sherlock pulled back abruptly. “Chlorine poisoning,” he announced.

John rolled his eyes exaggeratedly as if to say 'no, really?' in that annoyingly sarcastic way he had, just as Mycroft entered the room with a great deal more haste than Sherlock had seen him display in years.

“About time,” he snapped. “John needs a doctor, immediately. And oxygen.” It went without saying that a hospital was out of the question – if Mycroft's house wasn't completely secure, there was no way a hospital would be safe from Moriarty.

Mycroft had paused for a moment, taking in the scene with unnecessary slowness. Sherlock had never seen him actually need to pause to evaluate what he was seeing, and scowled at him. “Now, Mycroft!” he said. “It's chlorine.”

Mycroft nodded, striding swiftly into the room, all hesitation forgotten. “It's already taken care of,” he said. “The medical team should be here within a minute.” He fixed a stern glare on John. “Doctor Watson, it's vital that you keep yourself alive for a few more minutes.”

John pulled one of his hands away from where they were gripping tightly to Sherlock's arm - _when did that happen?_ wondered Sherlock – just long enough to flip Mycroft off, then returned it.

“Don't,” said Sherlock sharply to Mycroft. “You'll only make him want to spite you, and I can't have him-” he broke off, unable to phrase the next few words, even in his head. “He needs to concentrate,” he said instead.

There was the sound of feet in the corridor, accompanied by the rattle of equipment wheels, and a moment later the room was filled with medical professionals. They surrounded John, pulling Sherlock away in order to push an oxygen mask into place over his face, and Sherlock let them move him aside, keeping his eyes fixed on John's face. John glanced up at him and twitched an eyebrow, almost looking amused at all the fuss, and Sherlock glared at him. Stupid man wouldn't even give in to a poisoning attempt, he just had to keep being so-

The thought was cut off. Poisoning attempt, must have happened in this room, very recently, whilst he was sleeping, but Sherlock wasn't affected and no one came into the room, so how was it-

Sherlock's eyes riveted on the bed, on the dent in the pillow where John had pressed his face. “The sheets,” he realised. “The sheets are poisoned. Some kind of chemical compound that gives off chlorine – of course! You have to get him out of this room.”

One of the doctors glanced at him, then back down at the sheets and nodded. “Right,” he said with a confident snap to his voice. “You heard the man, we need to move this patient.”

“There's another bedroom next door,” said Mycroft. “It should be suitable.”

Someone pulled forward a gurney and they prepared to move John to it. John tried weakly to push them away, as if he was intending to move himself, but they ignored his efforts in favour of lifting him all together in one swift motion, half-pulling the sheets with him so that they trailed across the floor.

“The sheets,” repeated Sherlock, aghast. “My sheets. Aimed at me, but he got in the way.” His mind flashed back to a vision of Mary holding a pile of sheets and he turned furiously on Mycroft. “Your maid!” he said. “This was your maid!”

Mycroft's face was cold as he glanced at the door, where Sherlock could see a couple of Mycroft's security men lurking. “Find her,” he said in a low voice. They nodded and disappeared.

John was being wheeled out and Sherlock automatically went to follow him, shaking off Mycroft's arm when he tried to restrain him.

“Let them work in peace,” said Mycroft.

Sherlock shot him a disgusted stare and followed anyway, unable to keep his eyes off John until he was sure that he was going to be okay. They went next door to John's bedroom, the one where he should have been sleeping, where he would have been fine. Sherlock clenched his fist and felt nails bite into the skin of his palm. John was still breathing as if it was the most difficult thing he'd ever done, clutching at the oxygen mask like he'd been clutching at Sherlock's arm. Sherlock could still feel the grip of his hands imprinted on his skin and he ran one hand over where they had been, trying to press the memory of it into his skin.

“Sherlock,” said Mycroft in a soft voice. “You can't do anything here except get in the way.”

Sherlock scowled at him. “I have to stay,” he insisted. “I have to see that he's – it's my _fault_ , Mycroft, I have to make sure it's not-” He broke off again, huffing impatiently as his eyes went back to John, who was propped up on the bed now, still surrounded by the medics. A heavy weight bore down on Sherlock's whole brain, all the thoughts that he was unable to fully formulate about what might happen to John starting to choke off everything else.

He couldn't move away from where he was standing, frozen to the spot with his eyes glued to John the whole time that the medics were fussing around him, only dimly aware of Mycroft standing next to him, just as still and silent. He should be going after Mary, finding her so that they could find out why, work out the connection between her and Moriarty – it had to be Moriarty – but he couldn't even bring himself to contemplate leaving John now.

After about ten minutes, Mycroft reached out to touch his shoulder, squeezing it gently. Sherlock barely felt it.

 

****

 

**1985**

Sherlock didn't know what to do, so he went to see Mycroft. He thought Mummy was probably going to be angry when she found out, and Daddy was at work, but he knew he had to tell someone, if only so he could find out what the right response was.

He walked into Mycroft's room without knocking, carefully cradling all the bits of Rupert that he'd been able to salvage in his arms. Mycroft was sitting at his desk, doing something for school, but he looked around and put down his pen when he saw Sherlock.

Sherlock carefully laid out the pieces of Rupert on the desk, over Mycroft's schoolbooks, and looked up at him, waiting for a verdict.

“Oh dear,” said Mycroft with a sigh. “What have you done, Sherlock?”

“I didn't do anything,” protested Sherlock. Everyone always thought everything was his fault. “It was Jack. He gave him to Buster to play with.” He looked back at the scattered scraps of fur and stuffing that he'd preserved. “Can you fix him?”

Mycroft pulled Sherlock up into his lap, wrapping one arm protectively around him. Sherlock thought about telling him that he wasn't a baby and didn't need to be held, but right now, with Rupert all pulled apart, it made him feel a little bit better.

“Sometimes, things are broken too badly for us to fix them,” said Mycroft.

“Oh,” said Sherlock, looking back at Rupert and trying not to cry. He'd just been taking him to see the frogspawn in Mrs. Kettering's garden, he hadn't meant for this to happen. Mycroft was quiet for a while, rubbing Sherlock's back as if he knew how close he was to tears. _Crying is useless,_ Sherlock told himself firmly. He wasn't going to waste energy on it.

“Why did Jack give him to Buster?” Mycroft asked eventually, after Sherlock had pushed back the threat of tears.

Sherlock shook his head. “I don't know,” he said. “Because he's mean?”

“People don't usually do mean things unless they have a reason. It's called having a motive,” Mycroft explained. “Did you do something that provoked Jack?”

Sherlock frowned. “I just said that he was going to be sent to a special school for stupid children, because he can't even do his times tables yet. But that wasn't Rupert, that was me. Why would he hurt Rupert?”

“Because he knew it was the best way to hurt you,” said Mycroft with a sigh. “Sherlock, I thought we talked about being more polite to people.”

“Jack's not people,” said Sherlock angrily. “He killed Rupert – he's a murderer.”

Mycroft looked back down at the ruins of Rupert. “Even murderers are people,” he said.

The more Sherlock thought about it, the angrier he felt, the emotion building up and up inside him until he felt like he was going to explode. You couldn't just go around killing things – it was wrong. “I want to hurt him,” he said.

“That's not a good idea,” said Mycroft. “But if we tell Mummy, she'll talk to Jack's mother, and he'll get punished. That'll hurt him far more than anything you could do.”

Sherlock thought about it for a moment, about how when Mummy punished him it was the worst thing ever, then nodded. “Okay.”

Mycroft's arm tightened around him and they both sat in silence while Sherlock looked at what had used to be his only friend, and thought about Jack getting the punishment he deserved.

 

****

 

An interminable amount of time followed, during which Sherlock realised all over again that feeling like this for John caused too much pain and trouble – if he'd known it would end like this, he would never have allowed John to lend him his mobile that day in Bart's, let alone taken him to see Baker Street. He wondered if it was possible to still get out of this – he could cut John out, never see him again, and surely eventually the churning sensation in his stomach would ease enough to allow him to function as he had before. One look at John's pale, strained face was enough to destroy that illusion. Sherlock was stuck with this now. He'd just have to learn to adapt to it.

John slid into unconsciousness with the oxygen mask still clamped firmly on his face, but he looked much better than he had before. His breathing was coming much more steadily, even if there was still an unpleasant rasp to it. The lead doctor turned to Sherlock and Mycroft.

“We've stabilised him,” he said. “He needs to rest now.”

Mycroft nodded and pulled on Sherlock's shoulder. “Time to go,” he said. Sherlock resisted him, pulling away to stay where he was.

The doctor fixed him with a steely look. “He needs to be undisturbed,” he said in the manner of a man accustomed to being obeyed. “You're only hampering his recovery by staying here.”

Mycroft took his shoulder again and this time Sherlock let him lead him out of the room, pushing aside the sight of John looking so small in the bed, diminished almost, as if it was possible for a man like John to ever be diminished. He moved away from Mycroft in the corridor, trying to pull himself together. He needed to _think_ , find Mary and work out the link between her and Moriarty, how she had got past Mycroft's security like that, there was no time for useless worrying.

“My security will be waiting,” said Mycroft. He led the way down to a small room where two black-suited men were hunched over an expensive computer monitoring system, frowning in a way that made Sherlock's stomach sink.

One of them straightened up at their entrance, obviously restraining a salute. “She's disappeared, sir,” he reported in the bland tones of a man who knows his news is unwelcome.

“Oh for crying out loud!” exclaimed Sherlock, turning to Mycroft. “Are your men really so incompetent that they can be outwitted by a maid?”

Mycroft glowered at him. “I'm sure they will find her,” he said, fixing his man with a look that made him nod frantically.

“We've three teams out looking, sir,” he said. “She was last seen leaving through the back door after clearing away lunch. She told the man there that she needed to buy more bread, but never came back.”

“And you didn't think to send up an alarm?” asked Sherlock with frustration. He ran his hands into his hair, gripping tightly. “How do you even manage to dress yourself in the morning with so little intellect?!”

“Sherlock,” said Mycroft in a warning tone. Sherlock let out a disgusted sound and spun away, going to look at the computer screens, but they just showed a whole series of useless street views.

“Find her,” Mycroft told the man in a quiet, deadly hiss. It was a pale imitation of the version Mummy had used whenever she found one of Sherlock's dead animals in the kitchen, but it was enough to make the man nod frantically and then turn back to the surveillance.

Mycroft dragged Sherlock away before he could attempt to help, took him into the sitting room next door and gestured at the sofa. “Sit,” he commanded.

Sherlock did, but he made sure that his opinions on being ordered about like a dog were clear from his face.

Mycroft let out a sigh and sat down next to him. “I know you're finding this difficult,” he said. “Please try not to take it out on my men.”

Sherlock snorted his disdain for that, but took a deep breath anyway, trying to bring his brain back from teetering on the edge of confusion. John was going to be fine – he had to be. Mycroft's doctors had got there in time, and they clearly were the best. Military-trained and frighteningly competent – John was in the best possible hands.

Hands that Mycroft had provided in a fraction of the time that Sherlock had assumed he'd have to wait when he'd been sat beside John, trying to will him to keep breathing. For all that Sherlock hated Mycroft's meddling, if he'd saved John's life with his obsessive need to plan for every scenario, Sherlock owed him enough to keep his insults to himself.

Well, some of his insults – he couldn't promise miracles, after all.

“Good,” said Mycroft with a nod. “Now, think for a moment rather than just reacting. There was no game here, not like before. Moriarty wasn't playing with you.”

 _He just wanted me dead_ , Sherlock realised. No mocking calls or texts with clues to a treasure hunt, no warning at all. “Something's changed,” he said out loud. “Something that means that he just wants me gone rather than as a source of entertainment.”

“Precisely,” said Mycroft with a small, satisfied smile.

Sherlock returned it as the implications of that settled in. “We found his weakness,” he said. And a man with a weakness could be brought down.

 

****

 

When they finally let Sherlock in to see John, he was propped up on a stack of pillows with the oxygen mask still covering half his face, although he started trying to clumsily remove it when he saw Sherlock.

“Leave it,” commanded Sherlock, sitting down beside him, then moving the chair closer to the edge of the bed so that he could observe John properly, at the right level of detail. His face was a much better colour than it had been and his chest was moving with a regular and satisfying motion that made some of the cold weight in Sherlock's stomach fade away.

John just rolled his eyes and took the mask off anyway. “I can't talk with the bloody thing on,” he said in a hoarse, gasping voice.

“But you can breath,” Sherlock pointed out.

John gave him an amused smile. “Breathing's boring,” he said, and Sherlock scowled at the reminder of his own words.

“Not when it comes to you,” he said in a low voice.

John looked at him carefully for a moment, then reached over and covered Sherlock's hand with his own. “I'm sorry I scared you,” he said in a matching voice.

Sherlock tried to express some form of disdain for the idea that he'd been scared, but instead he just found himself gripping at John's hand, reassuring himself that his skin was the right temperature and that his pulse was within acceptable parameters.

John looked at where their hands linked together for a long moment and Sherlock wondered if he should let go – there were only so many clues he could let slip before even John managed to work this out – but he couldn't bring himself to open his fingers just yet. John didn't move his either, just kept holding on to Sherlock's hand with a steady, reassuring grip.

“Before,” he said after several minutes of silence, “you said you needed me.”

Sherlock clenched his jaw and stared down at their hands rather than John's face. “You were experiencing severe breathing difficulties,” he reminded him, hoping he sounded dismissive.

“There was nothing wrong with my hearing, though,” retorted John. His fingers clutched slightly tighter at Sherlock's. “Sherlock...what did you mean? How can you need me?”

Sherlock glared at their hands, trying to will himself to pull away and leave the room before the conversation got any worse. “How do you think?” he asked. “I can't afford the rent on my own, and I can't stay with Mycroft for much longer without becoming criminally insane.”

“And that's it, is it?” asked John and there was an edge of annoyance in his voice. Excellent – if Sherlock could just sufficiently piss him off, he'd forget all about this line of enquiry. “Because it seems you might have meant something else.”

Sherlock pretended to be puzzled. “Having you to make me tea is useful as well,” he added.

John let out a frustrated sigh, then had to stop and cough a couple of times as his lungs objected to the strength of it. Sherlock glanced up from their hands, grabbing the oxygen mask from where it had fallen and holding it over his face again.

“Idiot,” he hissed.

John took several careful breaths, then took the mask from Sherlock and pulled it away again. He looked determined, eyes fixed on Sherlock's so fiercely that Sherlock couldn't look away. “Because I find myself needing you too,” he said. “And for more than rent and- well, you never make tea, so I don't even have that benefit to blame it on.”

Sherlock felt himself freeze up, everything coming into focus with the kind of blinding clarity that usually signified a revelation. “You're my friend, John,” he forced out. “You know that.”

John nodded a couple of times, his eyes not leaving Sherlock's. “And you're mine,” he said, then something steeled within his gaze, his muscles tensing as if he was going into battle. “I could be more than that, though, if you wanted.”

Sherlock felt his eyes widen just as John leant forward and pressed a careful, dry-lipped kiss against his mouth.

Sherlock knew that there were contributing factors and consequences and all kinds of data that should be evaluated before he reacted, but when John leaned back, he didn't look confident or determined any more. He looked terrified, as if he'd only just realised what he'd done, the risk he'd taken. Sherlock couldn't bear to see him look like that, so he slid his hand around his neck, feeling soft hair brush against his fingers, and pulled him in for another kiss.

John's reaction was immediate and perfect. He clung to Sherlock's shoulders, pulling him in closer as he kissed him back, every move of his lips and tongue intensifying the rush of excitement surging through Sherlock's system, a thrill that he wasn't sure he could cope with filling him up until he had to pull away.

John was breathing raggedly again and immediately fumbled for the oxygen mask, pressing it over his mouth while his eyes stayed on Sherlock's face, wide and alive in a way that Sherlock had never seen them before. Suddenly he realised what Mycroft had meant when he'd said that there were benefits to this feeling that he had been struggling with, benefits that more than made up for the disadvantages.

“I need you like that,” he said in a half-whisper, barely aware he was saying it. “Exactly like that.”

John's smile grew. “That's good,” he said, pulling away the mask again. “Brilliant, actually.”

His breathing was still sounding more than a little strained, so Sherlock took the mask from him and put it back over his mouth. “Keep breathing,” he reminded him.

John rolled his eyes, but obediently took hold of the mask to keep it on his face. Sherlock nudged him over in the bed and climbed up next to him, settling back against the headboard with the whole right side of his body pressed against John's. Having him that close, close enough so that he could feel the rhythm of his breathing and the warmth of his body almost made up for the panic of watching him struggle for air earlier. He was just as comfortable as he'd hoped.

“So,” said John, moving the mask just enough to speak, “are you going to tell me what happened, or should I be trying to guess? How did chlorine get in your bed?”

Sherlock let out a careful breath. He wasn't sure John really wanted to know that it had been Mary who had tried to kill him, although part of his mind was quick to point out that at least that signalled an end to any threat she might pose as a potential romantic interest.

“Moriarty had an agent in the house,” he said. “He's been monitoring our progress ever since we got out of the hospital. I doubt there's anything he doesn't know about our research.”

“An agent?” asked John. “But who had that much access to-” he stopped himself dead. “Oh,” he said quietly and shut his eyes tiredly. “Mary.”

“She was ideally placed,” said Sherlock. “She's been with Mycroft for several years now – no one would have suspected her. I'm not sure yet if she's always been in Moriarty's pay and he's been playing a very long game, or if she was recruited recently.”

“And then she tried to kill me,” said John. “I suppose Moriarty decided to get me out of the way of his game.”

Sherlock stilled. For a split-second he was tempted to allow John to believe that, just to avoid him from knowing that he'd been caught in something that was aimed at Sherlock. He needed John to know the truth though, needed him to have a complete understanding of the picture. “John,” he said carefully. “It was _my_ bed that was poisoned.”

There was silence for a very long moment while John processed that and Sherlock waited, heart in mouth, to see if it was going to ruin this new thing between them. He rather thought that being the cause of near-death by chlorine poisoning was frowned upon as a dating technique.

“That makes no sense,” said John with a frown. “He's fixated on you – why would he send a minion to poison you? It lacks the personal, obsessive, crazy maniac touch, somehow.”

Sherlock wanted to laugh with joy. Trust John to confound his expectations and get right to the heart of the matter all in one sentence. “Precisely,” he said gleefully. “Clearly, we were getting too close to something important to him, and needed to be stopped.”

John blinked. “Moran,” he realised.

“Yes!” said Sherlock with excitement that John was on the same page as him. “Moran is the key to this – Moriarty tried to end the game early in order to protect him.”

“So if we get him...” said John, his face lighting up in a mirror of Sherlock's emotions.

“...we can use him to get to Moriarty,” finished Sherlock.

They grinned at each other for a long moment, and Sherlock felt triumph surge through him. This was going to be _easy_ \- he and John could do anything together, take on anyone and win. It was their turn in the game, and Moriarty was as good as dealt with.


End file.
